


Giving Up the Ghost

by dimpleforyourthoughts



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Drowning, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Paranormal, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 00:08:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 89,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2129613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimpleforyourthoughts/pseuds/dimpleforyourthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since his parents’ divorce, Jensen Ackles has just about given up on the living. Moving from town to town with his Mom and Sister, his only solace has been found in music, and ignoring pretty much everything else. The latest move to a massive plantation home in Louisiana feels like a dream come true: he'll have all the space and privacy he's ever wanted. But there's something--someone--else living in the house. And they're absolutely bent on making Jensen's peace and quiet a living hell.  Jensen's just a moody teenager who wants to be left alone. And Jared is the lonely ghost that haunts his bedroom. Determined to get rid of the pesky poltergeist, Jensen makes it his mission to get Jared to move on from this earth. But the more time they spend searching for Jared's way to cross over, the more Jensen is discovering that Jared might be one of the few people on this earth--living and dead--that he might want to keep around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I promised myself I was going to attempt a more lighthearted and ‘fun’ big bang for round 2, and I wrote this monster, the absolute antithesis of last year’s big bang. I have many thank yous, but I’ll try and keep them brief. Thank you first and foremost to Jessie, for always knowing what I need to hear by way of encouragement, and for talking plot points into the ground with me (seriously where would I be without you). Thank you to Katie, CiCi and Belle for endless inspiration and support as well. I’d still be a girl writing 300-word drabbles on her tumblr blog if it weren’t for friends like you guys. Thanks for letting me whine about this story for eight months straight.
> 
> Thank you to winchestergirl, who swooped in a la Wonder Woman and absolutely saved my ass with her beautiful fanart. Thank you SO much, I am in awe of every single piece. Thank you to wendy and thehighwaywoman for pulling off a flawless Big Bang as always. Thank you to nyxocity for being the kind of beta who challenges me to write not just better but smarter, and for reading ten bajillion drafts of this story. Lord knows how you do it, but I will forever be grateful that you do.
> 
> Spanish Translation of this fic: http://z13.invisionfree.com/Supernatural_Foro/index.php?showtopic=5143

                                                                  

 

 **Give Up the Ghost:**   _An idiomatic expression defined as passing away in a peaceful fashion or moving on to the afterlife with finality. Essentially, to die._

_\----_

 

Jensen hates everything.  
  
Jensen hates his life, he hates the sky, he hates the trees, he hates that his hoodie shrunk in the dryer last night and he hates that his stomach is growling because he woke up too late to grab breakfast. He hates this long dismal highway and he hates the weather and he most especially hates his Mom, who is presently playing Sacagawea at the helm of steering wheel, trying to find the correct interstate highway to switch onto in order to make the complete trek to the insignificant location of Nowheresville in the smack dab middle of Bumfuck Louisiana.  
  
The long and short of it is that Jensen is not a happy camper.  
  
Not that he was much of a happy camper before, back in his old hometown in Texas. Richardson has and always will suck ass, too small to be a big city and too big to be a small town, never anything to do, and any activities that were deemed fun were either highly illegal or simply too dangerous to even attempt. It remains a place that does not suck by default, but rather because of crappy circumstances and crappy people that pretty much numbed Jensen to any enjoyment Richardson had to offer. He’d thought leaving that place would clear the suck out of his life once and for all.  
  
But Jensen has learned by now that he isn’t that lucky, because after Richardson there was Dallas. Then Milwaukee. Then Tucson up through Phoenix followed by Salt Lake City and then back to Milwaukee for a heinously short time. Detroit, Walla Walla, New York City, Poughkeepsie. A brief stint in Los Angeles, an even briefer stint in Las Vegas and now here, on the road, with a couple townless hotel rooms sprinkled in along the way.  
  
Jensen’s Mom moves him and his sister around as often as normal families visit relatives or get into serious fights. He’s been to a fair chunk of what most people would consider must-see stops on their road trip across the Heartland of America. It’s a shame he can’t tell those people it’s not worth the time or money to see a single one of those places.  
  
“This is the last time, I swear,” Donna promises as if she can read Jensen’s mind. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.” She reaches for the cup holder, her well acclimated hand perfectly predicting the distance between the steering wheel and triple espresso from the last gas station they stopped at. “This time we’re gonna get lucky. This town will stick, I can feel it.”  
  
Even in the early dawn lighting Jensen can see the deep circles underneath his Mother’s eyes--blows from an invisible abuser that seems to live inside her chest and keep her up at night--but he refuses to acknowledge the pang of sympathy at the sight of them. His Mom made the decision to move them, has always made the decisions to move them.  
  
As a traveling nurse, Mom is good at fixing wounds, Jensen knows this. He also knows that she’s terrible at fixing anything else, despite her best efforts.  
It hadn’t been so bad at first, what with the divorce and all. Moving around so fast and so often had at first felt like a long adventure to Jensen, ten years old with a cranky big brother and a whiny little sister. But the countless road trips got old pretty quickly, and seven years later any sense of excitement has deteriorated into irritation over the inconvenience. Not that moving ever truly usurps Jensen’s life; he doesn’t make friends, there’s no one to miss or say goodbye to or be sad about when his Mom announces a new job in a new town. He’d stopped objecting to moves around the same time his Mother stopped wearing her wedding ring. There’s no point in committing himself to ceremonies of tearful farewells and sitting in the way, way back of the car just so he can watch his home fade into the blue skies and gray road, an afterthought on the edge of his world. Mom says ‘let’s go’ and Jensen packs his bags and takes off, no questions asked.  
  
It’s just another town, and despite what his Mom says, it most certainly will not be the last. This, he knows for sure.  
  
Mackenzie is applying her Barbie Deluxe Kit eye makeup in the backseat. Her hair is pulled into two pigtails complete with bows, contradicting the fact that she’s trying her hardest to look like a grownup. Jensen thinks he should tell her that the only thing she’s succeeding in is looking more like a raccoon, but he doesn’t feel like dealing with her kicking at his seat in retaliation, or making her cry, or a combination of the two.  
  
Mac looks up and sticks her tongue out at Jensen, and he rolls his eyes.  
  
“So what’s this place called again?” He puts forth the question to his Mother so she won’t ask any of him, something he learned to do a long time ago. People love talking, and if you ask the right questions, you really never have to say a word.  
  
“Singer,” Donna smiles, pleasantly surprised at her son’s seeming interest. “It’s a suburb about fifty miles out from New Orleans, with a lot of rich history. You’re going to love the place I got us, kids. It’s a real artifact of a house, beautiful architecture! I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been snatched up, the rent was so low--”  
  
His Mother continues to talk but Jensen tunes her out, not even bothering to feel bad about shifting away in his seat and shoving in his earphones, volume kicked up to the max.  
  
Rainbow oil smears across the screen of his iPod as he brushes his thumb over it, scrolling through, eyes flicking over each numbered item stored under Playlists. Jensen doesn’t do albums or artists; his life is not survivable on the basis that a singular disc, singer or band can get him through the pain in the ass that is existence. Playlists are the drug of choice, he likes the variety they offer, how--when the right mood strikes--he can cook them up and serve them fresh, a Prince’s meal for a Pauper. He scoops in the tracks, places them in specific order, drizzles on theme and mood and meaning and tops it all off with a sprinkle of title, the cherry on top. Playlists are the only thing he can control, and he digs that, actually.  
  
It is the singular most grounding reassurance in Jensen’s life; that in the crappy teen angst straight-to-DVD movie that is his life, he at least gets to pick the soundtrack.  
  
Without another second’s hesitation, he taps playlist #32: “What’s Even the Point”, and shoves his hands into the pockets of his shrunken hoodie. This highway looks familiar, one they might have driven through back when this was fun, when moving and finding a new home felt like the birth of spring instead of the dead of winter, familiarity itching inside him as he watches grassy green midways and even greener trees lining the highway in a solid wall fly by, gray cauterizing the bleed of the sun as it rises.  
  
It doesn’t matter how many times they’ve moved, how many times they will continue to move, nor how much his Mom promises that they’ll be happy here. Jensen will hate it in Singer as much as he’s hated it everywhere else.  
  
This completely and totally blows.  
  
\--  
  
Jensen wakes to a puddle of drool on his wrist and a red mark on his cheek from where he slept against the window. His neck is stiff from hunching, and it’s with much reluctance that he removes his headphones. Fantastic.  
  
“We’re here!” Jensen’s Mom looks tired, but satisfied, easing the car to a crawl as they pull down a curved road canopied with trees. The trees shove sunlight aside in a scramble to grow in every which direction; tall, but with branches that droop heavily, weighed by foliage as they try and touch the ground. Spanish moss hangs like softer, greener icicles and everything is crowded, branches invading branches, vines wrapped around trunks, Nature’s mob in their own front yard; beech and oak and dogwood and cedar are battling for dominance, and so much green, more green than Jensen’s ever seen in his life. The vibrancy almost hurts to look at.  
  
They’ve reached an open gate at the marked end of the dirt road and the beginning of a driveway. The car engine barely shudders at the head of the driveway and clunks off before Mackenzie’s out and racing along the long stretch of pavement disappearing through the veil of green, Jonah into the belly of the whale.  
  
Jensen oozes out, limbs creaking as he stretches, sucking in the soupy September air before spitting it out in a fast exhale. It’s midday, and the sun is blazing down oppressively, determined to break through the army of trees, causing sweat to pool on his lower back. The humidity hits him with the impact of running into a brick wall, moisture crowding on his skin and sticking in his throat, cloying and strong. The ground is dry, but with the heavy damp sensation in the air, a torrential rainstorm may have well just ended. What had been a crisp early morning in Texas several hundred miles back is now a sweltering heat wave in Louisiana that makes Jensen want to do nothing more than douse himself in a cold shower.  
  
He squints at the sun and sends a mental middle finger its way as high heels clack across the driveway, sharp on the thin pavement.  
  
“Well hi there!” There’s a coquettish Southern twang to the speaker’s voice, and when Jensen blinks the sun out of his eyes he sees a woman standing before them, all bleached teeth and tan skin. Her auburn hair is perfectly coiffed, and she looks more like a former beauty pageant queen than the current landlord of their property, especially as she holds out a hand to his Mom and says, “I’m Danneel Harris, of the Harris Family Estate. So pleased to meet y’all. You must be Donna!”  
  
She looks to be a good five or six years older than Jensen, and if he were he any other teenage boy, he’d probably be salivating over the ample curves of her body. As it is, he’s mostly bored, and aching to get out of the heat. Not bothering to ask permission, he surges ahead down the winding driveway as it curves through the canopy of trees. His Mom and Danneel-Harris-of-the-Harris-Family-Estate walk and talk behind him.  
  
“I had the inspector come in just a few days ago, so you should find all utilities in working condition. Keys and locks all freshly replaced, the only thing I should warn you about is the groundskeeper who shows up on the thirteenth of every month, but I’ll be sure to send you a reminder email before that happens.”  
  
“This sounds like quite the gig you’ve got. I take it you rent often to tenants?” Donna asks conversationally, just as they wind around the final veil of obscuring trees and the house finally comes into view.  
  
It’s huge. Absolutely huge.  
  
Jensen blinks. He doesn’t remember much of two story houses. There was the one he lived in as a kid before the divorce and that was all, but he’s positive that this house is three times the size of his home in Richardson, both in width and in height. He’s never lived in a place like this, not in all their years of moving around. It’s always been cramped apartments and low rent fixer-uppers, the occasional three bedroom house in suburbia. This--by comparison--is excessive.  
  
If anything, it looks like a scene straight out of Gone with the Wind, or one of those other God Awful civil war novels Jensen was forced to read in freshman English.  
  
The driveway blends to a walkway which stops short at a whitewashed porch that wraps around the entire house, one of those antebellum style porches that would—ideally—have rocking chairs and swing sets and picnic tables for summer nights. The exterior of the house is an alternating amalgam of eggshell and pure white, a contrast that—with the vibrant green of the thick lawn and trees—is almost off putting. Massive Grecian columns jut proudly, running around the width of the house, gables austere and gray, entablature etched with intricate friezes which curl around the massive front door like icing on a cake. It’s a beautiful and stately house, but the shroud of nature makes it feel isolated, almost hidden from the rest of the world.  
  
An image falls into place in the back of his mind from the time they drove briefly through New York City. The Statue of Liberty reminds Jensen of this house; majestic, a relic of idealism and dreams now covered by car exhaust and sea fog, the once shiny copper oxidized green and opaque, timelessness turned tired.  
  
“—hardest time finding tenants that want to stick around here,” Danneel Harris’ voice filters back into Jensen’s head, a fly buzzing in his ear as she walks past him to unlock the door. “I’ve never been able to understand it,” she goes on. “So I’ve had to make ends meet, lower the rent. Most of the sugar plantation houses go for thousands, millions out here if they’re selling. But for some reason this one hasn’t stuck in a while. Anyway, I’m just hoping this place is to your liking enough that you’ll stay!”  
  
She turns her smile full-force on all of them as she pushes the door open to the house, darkened compared to the outside.  
  
Jensen wonders if Danneel Harris can tell just by their expressions that they’ve never set foot in a home even half this size.  
  
“Oh,” Donna says politely. “This will do nicely. So nicely. Miss Harris, I can’t thank you enough—“  
  
“I get dibs on the room with the balcony!” Mackenzie screeches, racing up the stairs and shoving Jensen, as if the strength of her scrawny arms will prevent her big brother from beating her to the punch.  
  
Donna and Danneel break out in good natured laughter, and continue on with their tour of the house. His Mom doesn’t beckon him to come along, and Jensen knows by now that he doesn’t need to follow out of politeness because she doesn’t expect him to. Thank God.  
  
He stands, shifting, in the foyer, deep oak paneling that becomes white plaster as a staircase ascends to the upper level like a dog’s long tongue, massive and winding along the wall, all smooth wood along the banister. He can hear Mackenzie’s delighted peals from up above and his Mother’s voice coming from what he guesses to be the kitchen. There’s something else he hears, too. Piano?  
  
The foyer stems into a threshold of other rooms, all immaculately furnished and arranged. There’s a ballroom--a goddamned  _ballroom_ \--and a sitting room and a pantry and a number of other rooms on the bottom floor that Jensen’s not even sure have a purpose apart from showing off how much space this place contains. Piano whispers in the distance and he follows the sound, pace quickening until he reaches the second floor, a landing that reaches to the front protruding bosom of the house, a small office bathed in light.  
  
He strains, listening, but the piano has fizzled into near silence, sound too soft to even seem real. Jensen squares his shoulders and returns to his trek up the stairs, stripping off his sweater as he does so. It really is the biggest house he’s ever been in, bar none. Wide windows mark the wall along the staircase, covered in shutters and curtains, a grandiose, unlit crystal chandelier hanging at the very top of the ceiling. The dark staircase leads to an even darker third floor, dimly lit hallway branching off to at least half a dozen further rooms of the house. For how bright he knows it is outside, the darkness is almost encroaching and possessive as Jensen steps up and into it, scant cracks of light breaching from underneath the doors.  
  
Mac pokes her head out of the nearest one, cheeks flushed, light spilling out with her. “Jenny! Pick a room! This place is sa-weet!”  
  
Jensen rolls his eyes. “Quit calling me Jenny, Mackie,” grinning as she narrows her eyes before slamming the door like there’s already a ‘KEEP OUT: MAC’S ROOM’ sign tacked to it. The slamming of the door leaves him once more in darkness. He can barely hear his Mother’s voice two floors down.  
  
He gropes for some sort of light switch in the hallway but eventually settles for just groping in general, playing off the cracks of light that seep in underneath the closed doors till he gets to the furthest door from the rest of the house, all by itself at the very end of the hall. Just the way Jensen likes it.  
  
The sweat on his back has cooled enough to feel almost like a chill, which is ridiculous, considering how hot it should be at the very top of the house. When he reaches forward and grabs the aged glass door knob to turn it, he feels the device shudder against the heat of his palm, as if the door hasn’t been opened in years and weeps with relief at the opportunity.  
  
The hinges creak, and Jensen makes a note to snatch some oil from the kitchen to loosen them up. The rubber soles of his Chuck Taylors swish with soft sound as he walks forward, pressing upon freshly polished wooden floors that look as untarnished as he’s sure the large window across the room will be once he pulls back the curtains. With the bare room and the spotless floors and the scent of paint so fresh it might still be drying, Jensen has to wonder who in their right mind would ever move  _out_  of this place.  
  
Because this? This beats out every place they’ve ever stayed in combined. And that includes that one week stint up at the Ritz back when Jensen turned fourteen.  
  
Jensen walks the parameter, takes in the comfy looking mattress that could easily fit three people on it, the ledge near the window just above an AC unit. There’s a walk in closet and next to it, a bathroom. His bathroom, his own bathroom. Complete with an incredibly deep sink and a sliding door shower that he can’t wait to test the water pressure of, out of place in a house that’s supposed to be hundreds of years old. He flicks the light switch experimentally, tests the faucets, noting the renovations.  
  
There’s also a claw footed bathtub next to the shower, which he’ll probably never in his damn life use, but the aesthetic and fact of it sitting there available for him to use makes it great.  
  
He can’t help but feel a little positive about this experience, a stirring in his blood. Moving sucks, it does, and he’s without a doubt that the high school is going to mega suck and the people in this tiny washed up town are going to mega-mega suck, but at least this new place might for once work to his advantage. There’s so much  _space_. He won’t need to share a room with Mac or worry about having anyone walk in on him while he’s showering or jerking off. If Jensen doesn’t want people around, he can go anywhere, hide anywhere, sulk anywhere. His Mom isn’t going to want to traipse about the house looking for him, not when it will take such an effort, and Mac learned to stop asking Jensen to play with her years ago.  
  
It’s perfect. Everything else in his life might be absolute shit, but for once, for fucking  _once_ , he will finally have peace and quiet to himself.  
  
Once he opens the curtains and gets the moaning and groaning AC to work, it takes him all of a half hour to move all his belongings into the drawers and cabinets, courtesy of the Harris Family. He’d been downstairs grabbing the last box when his Mother mentioned that the previous tenants had been in a hurry to move, and so had left much of their furniture behind, which explains the bed. Jensen isn’t complaining, even though his personal belongings take up considerably less than the provided space. He isn’t much of a sentimentalist, nor a pack rat, so it’s not really a surprise. He tosses the last pair of socks into the drawer and clicks it shut, looking about. The walls could probably use some posters, maybe some personality, but Jensen’s both too tired and too apathetic to care.  
  
Standing in the space of a blank room, Jensen smiles to himself, satisfied.  
  
He’s finally alone.  
  
\--  
  
It’s not really that Jensen hates people. He doesn’t. He can recall a small handful of friends in earlier years, kids from his childhood that he’d had over after school for juice boxes and swing sets and gruesome playground injuries. That number has tapered off significantly in recent years, but it’s not really something that Jensen himself can fault himself for. If people find him caustic and hard to get along with, well, that’s pretty much their problem if they can’t deal with it.  
  
Jensen doesn’t hate people, there just happens to be a large part of him which keeps in mind that in his seventeen years of being alive, he has learned one solid fact about people: they disappoint you. They lie or they leave or they turn out to be twice as shitty as you thought they were originally. It’s not like they can help it, few people are aware of just how terrible they are, so Jensen doesn’t blame them for it and Jensen doesn’t judge them for it. He doesn’t hate people, he just understands them.  
  
Today, however, with sunny weather and chirping birds and an alarm that just won’t take Snooze for an answer? Today Jensen actually hates people.  
  
Playlist #43 is a motivational ensemble aptly titled ‘Fuck’. It’s turned up full volume as Jensen edges into the “hallowed” halls of Singer High School, and even then it’s still not enough to block out the wall of sound that greets him, yelling and shuffling and lockers slamming. Jensen walks as quickly as humanly possible to his first class, finding no reason to be late and have to enter with everyone staring at him. He goes straight for the back desk, the Oasis in hell, and sits, burying his head in his arms. Track number one has the lead singer screaming in his ear about feeling numb or some shit and he sinks into the angry crash of guitars like someone sinks into a hot tub, warm and welcoming. He’s got fifteen minutes to ride out before the real torture begins, he can do this, he’s got this.  
  
Something—someone—nudges his shoulder.  
  
“You’re in my seat, dickhead.” A voice pipes up in front of him, loud enough to be heard over the screaming of Linkin Park.  
  
For fuck’s sake.  
  
Jensen rips his ear buds out of his ears and glares at the bright eyed girl with the heaping bag hanging off her shoulder. She looks more good natured than hostile, but Jensen is turned off instantly to any hope that she might be a decent person. This is his seat. He got here  _first_.  
  
“Oh, you’re not—you’re new.” The corners of her eyes crinkle a little bit, and she bites at her lip, flushing slightly. “Sorry, I thought you were…your hair’s the same color as my best friend and I thought...”  
  
Jensen stares at her. His earphones are rattling against his wrists as the playlist continues.  
  
“Right. Um. Allow me to start again.” She sticks a tiny hand right in Jensen’s face, equal parts peppy and polite. “Hiya, what’s your name?”  
  
Jensen has the sudden overwhelming urge to gag because Christ this chick is fake. From her manicured fingernails to the butterfly barrettes in her hair. She’s only making conversation to cover for her rude interruption of Jensen’s solitude, no actual interest in who he is or what he’s doing in her seat. He really doesn’t have time to deal with this shit at this hour, so Jensen just puts his head back down on his desk and jams his earphones back in.  
  
If he hurts her feelings, he doesn’t care.  
  
The final bell signaling the beginning of class sounds off, necessitating the exit of his iPod and general uprightness of his spine, and from the corner of his eye Jensen sees the girl whispering to a boy across the aisle. She points at Jensen and the boy rounds in his seat, glares at Jensen before turning back to the girl and whispering something that makes her throw her head back in laughter.  
  
As the teacher shuts everyone up and stares down the boy and the girl, Jensen eases back in his seat, unsurprised at how little he cares. He doesn’t care what they think of him, if they think he’s an asshole, if they’ve got a problem with the ratty jeans he’s got on, the vintage Sid Vicious tee with a hole in the shoulder. He just wants to get done with this class and out of this room, because then he’ll be one more class away from being done with the first day in hell and then back to the solitude of his own room.  
  
Let them talk all they want.  
  
\--  
  
“How was your first day, sweetie?” Donna asks as Jensen sloughs into the car.  
  
He’s been through the entire ‘Fuck’ playlist on his iPod almost twice in full. That’s how his first day was.  
  
Jensen shrugs, the movement lifting his t-shirt where it’s pasted to his back with sweat, like velcro. It’s hotter than Satan’s ballsack, and the feeble wheeze of the car’s air conditioning system does nothing to dispel that fact.  
  
“I had a good day, thanks for asking,” Donna continues, her tone wry enough that Jensen doesn’t think he’s actually offended her. She’s used to this sort of response by now, at least. “Danneel and I went out for brunch and she told me more about the house. She’s quite the woman.” Donna’s got another coffee perched in the cup holder: she takes an enthusiastic sip. “Did you know she graduated from Harvard with a business degree?  _Plus_  she conceived the business plan to keep her family estate of plantation homes up and running without turning it over to the government for subsidizing. It’s really quite remarkable.” She smiles at Jensen, as if he’s supposed to give a shit about all of this. “And the house, it’s so beautiful, don’t you think?”  
  
Jensen shrugs, a jack in the box with no movement but up and down; it’s all he has energy for. His Mom thankfully explains that she has a meeting with her work supervisor tonight, so she’ll be out late, and can Jensen please order pizza for him and Mackenzie. With enough luck, he’ll be able to coax Mackenzie into watching a movie in one of the millions of rooms on the first floor, and be able to have the upstairs area to himself for most of the evening.  
  
Sunlight beats relentlessly through the windows and Jensen shrinks away, feeling his skin stretched tight from the heat, everything else melted down to utter uselessness. He’s exhausted, and all he did was circulate between six different classes and mumble out his name whenever teachers were sadistic enough to have him stand up and introduce himself. No worse than any other first day Jensen has spent at high schools, but then again, they all sort of blur together into one gigantic mass of suck by this point. Plus or minus the boiling soup of torture that is ambient Louisiana air.  
  
The thought of going through another nine or so months of this before Graduation is excruciating, enough to inspire the restart of ‘Fuck’.  
  
Third time’s the charm.  
  
\--  
  
Jensen can’t find his glasses.  
  
This isn’t usually a big deal, except for the fact that Jensen is approximately three weeks behind on school work due to his late enrollment and an English paper to be turned in first thing tomorrow morning. He could honestly give two shits about school work, but having crap grades means having his Mom ask questions and wonder what’s wrong, and that’s a whole other level of invasion of personal space that he doesn’t even want to begin to consider. So here he is, Thursday night, absolutely scrambling to get work done, and just as he’d been pulling out Faustus and preparing to buckle down and actually read, he’d noticed the empty space where he usually keeps his glasses on his nightstand.  
  
That was fifteen minutes and one neat room ago. It’s already getting late, Jensen really can’t afford to screw around if he wants to write a half coherent essay, and unless he’s a victim of recently acquired blindness, there’s only one place those glasses can be.  
  
“Fucking Mac!” He barks, stomping down the dim hallway. He doesn’t care if she’s getting ready for bed, or is already asleep, the girl’s sneakier than most, and he wouldn’t put it past her to steal his stuff just because she can. He whips her door—already coated in unicorn and flower stickers after just one week in the house—open to find Mac seated on the floor, nose buried in what looks to be a very scandalous and age inappropriate romance novel. She shoves it under her bed, looking nervous.  
  
“What?” The puppy dog eyes instantly come up and Jensen glares.  
  
“Where did you put my glasses, you brat?”  
  
“I didn’t take your glasses, Jensen, honest!” Mackenzie scrambles up as he lunges for her duvet, ripping it off the bed and riffling through the sheets. When he throws one of her multiple stuffed animals to the floor, her lip trembles and before Jensen can scramble to cover her mouth Mac is wailing “MOOOOMMM!” at the top of her lungs, on the verge of a full on meltdown.  
  
It’s not long before Mom is in the room hollering at Jensen for making his little sister cry--how dare he, he’s almost an adult why does he have to instigate this crap with his little sister and suddenly in sixty seconds flat it’s more noise than Jensen ever wanted to have in his evening.  
  
“I didn’t even touch her! I just wanted my glasses back!”  
  
“I don’t want your excuses!” Mom’s tone is clipped as she hoists a sniffling Mackenzie into her arms. “I want you to apologize. Mac has been in her room the whole evening, she didn’t take your glasses, and you should have believed her when she told you that.”  
  
He’s got a paper due in less than twelve hours and the panic delayed by procrastination is truly starting to settle in, and Mom is not helping. If he doesn’t find his reading glasses stat, he is well and truly fucked.  
  
“Use my prescription ones,” his Mother sighs tiredly, apparently not willing to put up much of a fight anymore on Mac’s behalf. “They’re not your exact type, but they’ll do. Sound good?”  
  
Jensen nods curtly and goes to snatch them from her purse down in the kitchen, irritation spiking like hot flash on the back of his neck. He knows the second he puts those glasses on that he’s going to have one helluva migraine come morning, because his eyes aren’t used to these glasses at all, however similar his Mother’s vision may be to his own.  
  
He makes it through the book and the essay with a double dose of Tylenol , a fuckton of coffee, and playlist #16: ‘You Can Sleep When You Die’. By the time he crashes, the sky has turned from black to light grey and his head is pounding like he drank a fuckton of vodka instead.  
  
The alarm goes off at seven am and Jensen’s never felt more prone to homicide. He swings out of bed, swipes blindly for the bottle of Tylenol and jumps when his hands make contact with a decidedly different object.  
  
He stares at the familiar eyeglasses--most definitely not Mom’s--folded just so on his nightstand, as if they’d never been lost in the first place. It’s some kind of sick cosmic joke, and Jensen’s head throbs immensely at the realization that he’d probably missed them in his paranoid frenzy to find them in the first place.  
  
Stupid. So so stupid.  
  
He chalks it up to his own idiocy and makes it to school in time to turn in the paper, leaving his glasses where they turned up.  
  
That’s the first time it happens.


	2. Chapter 2

Jensen’s clothes start missing the next week.

He doesn’t notice at first. Being a teenage boy, Jensen is pretty used to wearing whatever he can salvage from his floor or spritz with enough air freshener in hopes it’ll cover the sour smell of dried sweat. Being the kid who looks like he shops off the clearance rack at Goodwill only aids the cause of keeping people away from him, so Jensen works the could-give-two-shits look to the best of his ability. It’s very common that Jensen’s socks are mismatched or his t-shirt is stained or has a hole in the armpit. The meticulous organization Jensen has set up for his laundry (i.e.-; none whatsoever) has allowed him to always have clothes on hand to at least get him through the school days of the week.  
  
Clothes, like eating, like breathing, and all the other stuff in between, are a necessity Jensen just has to live with.  
  
But it’s Wednesday and he’s completely out of boxers. Mom is yelling up the stairway for him to grab breakfast before they go, and Jensen has no boxers. Not dirty boxers, not clean boxers, not even that one pair of briefs he keeps in the back of his drawer just in case he doesn’t feel like wearing boxers.  
  
And there’s no way, no fucking way, that Jensen misplaced all his boxers. He had kicked aside a pair last night on his way to bed, he’s sure he had. But now, there are none.  
  
“Mom! Did you do laundry last night or something?” Jensen hollers over the banister.  
  
“What do you think I am, the maid?” Donna hollers back sarcastically. “C’mon and eat your French toast, we don’t do breakfast in bed here at the Holiday Inn!”  
  
Jensen lets out a long string of curses that he hopes don’t travel downstairs, and rounds to storm back into his room when he spots the chandelier at the top of the staircase.  
  
The chandelier which is, as of this moment, bearing multiple pairs of boxers from its attachments, not so unlike a Christmas tree, with his underwear as the ornaments.  
  
It’s a good ten feet or so above his head; Mac could never throw that well to get them hanging so perfectly.  
  
He’s either sleep addled or losing it. Because  _he_  certainly didn’t turn around and play ring-toss with his underwear and this chandelier.  
  
What the actual  _fuck_.  
  
Jensen stands, spluttering, as Donna returns to the foyer, calling up, “Jensen I mean it! Mac wants your French toast and I’m of half a mind to give it to her!”  
  
He goes to school commando, resigned to get his clothes in order that evening. His pants feel itchy and tight such that he spends a good portion of the day readjusting himself when he thinks no one is looking. It is without a doubt the most uncomfortable Jensen has ever felt in his four years of high school.  
  
The rest of the day passes about as well as the morning did, and by the time Jensen gets home he’s actually on the verge of screaming and possible self-immolation. In a moment of frenzy he considers the lighter fluid and matches in the kitchen cupboard, but instead he marches to the shed and fetches the fishing pole from the camping equipment. He makes a racket stomping back up the stairs and when he gets to the foyer he’s practically seeing red with how  _pissed_  he is with no one or nothing to actually be pissed at. He’s chaffed and pissed and embarrassed and uncomfortable and he just wants to get the boxers down from—  
  
The chandelier is empty.  
  
Blinking hard several times doesn’t appear to change that fact.  
  
Jensen retreats to his room with the decision that he needs a very long and uninterrupted sleep, some time to lick his wounds. He nearly bursts a blood vessel when he discovers his underwear stacked on the edge of his bed, each one folded into a perfect pressed square.  
  
He’s never done drugs in his life but he’s starting to feel that he’s heavily tripping on them.  
  
Jensen stares at the pile for a solid minute, mind racing for an explanation of how— _how_ —this could have happened. He’s not paranoid enough to think his Mother or sister would do something as dramatic and painstaking as this; because as much as they irk Jensen, he’s not about to believe that they care enough to go to all that trouble just to piss him off.  
  
The mattress bounces and creaks when Jensen throws himself onto it, exhausted by all counts and feeling practically frenzied with irritation. Either he’s crazy or someone is well and truly fucking with him. The thing is though, last time he checked, there were only three people in this house; his Mother, his sister, and himself.  
  
With nowhere to direct his ire, Jensen falls into a fitful sleep. It’s probably Mac. Has to be Mac.  
  
He’ll deal with it later.  
  
\--  
  
Jensen’s never considered himself to be a forgetful person. An idiot, sure, a loser and a pathetic waste of space and every other playground insult he can pull, sure. But not forgetful. Yet within the last week he’s misplaced a large majority of the personal belongings in his room. Deodorant, shoes, socks, shoelaces, underwear, pencils, calculators, toiletries, toilet  _paper_ , all at times when Jensen needs them the most.  
  
A lot of them seem understandable, but Jensen tends to draw the line at toilet paper.  
  
Time and time again he’s torn apart his room, only to discover the items a few hours or days later exactly where he had left them in the first place. The combination of lost items and unsuccessful searches for said items has Jensen in a week long simmering rage that makes him feel volatile and unhealthily on edge. Kids at school avoid making eye contact in the hallway and teachers typically don’t even try to call on him in class, which must mean the vibe he’s giving off is seriously bad news.  
  
Not that Jensen is complaining. The space is almost a reward, if he weren’t in such a shitty mood to begin with.  
  
By the time September bleeds into October, Jensen’s wound tight enough with recent events that a three day weekend offered by the School District is a blessing in disguise. Friday night comes around like a hot date, except instead of cute small talk and groping in the back of a movie theater, Jensen looks forward to an empty house and fresh takeout from Ying’s down the road. Mom’s taking Mackenzie to a sleepover and then heading out for drinks with coworkers, which works just fine for Jensen, kicking up his feet on the table as he settles in with a steaming hot carton of Beef Lo Mein and his iPod plugged into the surround sound speakers down in the living room. No disturbance but the ticking Grandfather clock down the hallway and the cicadas outside.  
  
He may have lost his wits last week, but at least he hasn’t lost his music. #26: Nostalgia is tonight’s playlist, old songs from his childhood that remind him of home, or at least the feeling of home.  
  
Playlists like this feel like summer, songs triggering certain memories that call back to the hot months in Texas when his brother Josh was thirteen and Dad decided it was time to teach him how to fix cars, the Ackles Family preliminary to Driver’s Ed. Jensen was young but Dad let him watch from a stool over by the tool bench, as they worked on this old clunker of a pickup truck Dad had bought years ago, a real fixer-upper with creaking brakes and a sticky steering wheel.  
  
That summer is one Jensen remembers more than most, probably because it was just before things started getting bad, the calm before the storm. It was the summer that Josh discovered girls were cooler than cars, so he spent a lot more time distracted rather than listening. So on increasing occasion Dad would call Jensen over and have him lean under the hood and then gently talk Jensen through how to change a flat tire or fix the transmission. Being so young, he’d barely understood a word Dad was saying, but Jensen loved that truck more than he’d loved most things, and hanging out in the garage with his Dad and that truck and the radio all summer was something Jensen could never forget, no matter how hard he tried. The timbre of his father’s voice, and the scratch and hum of the radio remain memories which work like hypnosis on Jensen, memory he is unable to resurface from, even in a completely different house, a different state, a different lifetime.  
  
He eats his food, chews the mixture of starch, oils and fat like it’s the nectar of the Gods as he listens, finding uncharacteristic comfort in music’s’ association with his past. Most things involving Jensen’s Dad are not things Jensen ever wants to talk about, let alone acknowledge. The pickup truck they’d fixed that summer had been a present on Jensen’s 16th birthday, but like most things attached to his Dad at that point—letters, phone calls, birthday cards—Jensen refused it, keeps it sitting in the garage or carport unless emergency necessitates its use. The truck follows Jensen like a shadow, arrives at every location along with the moving trucks full of their stuff. He thinks Mom is hoping that he’ll warm up to it eventually--Mom has a habit of putting hopes onto Jensen that he can’t live up to.  
  
Music, however, has always remained the steady ground, the thing about his Dad that was never tarnished or sullied by what happened, simply because the music his Dad liked was not something that had changed amongst everything else that had. Besides, Jensen likes it too.  
  
Everything to do with Jensen’s Dad made Jensen angry, except this music or the memory of that summer.  
  
Don Mclean kicks in and Jensen smiles around a mouth full of noodles. This is the good stuff, always. No matter how much of a bastard his Dad turned out to be.  
  
 _And something touched me deep inside  
The day the music died_  
  
Humming under his breath, Jensen finishes the rest of the takeout, turning the volume up and standing as the drums kick in and the beat picks up. There are some songs that no matter how many times you’ve heard them or read the lyrics, you never understand what the song is actually about, but that doesn’t mean you love the song any less. Jensen likes that he gets to create his own meaning of the song. To him, American Pie sounds like a story of a summer spent in a garage under the hood of a busted up truck. It really doesn’t matter what it means or sounds like to anyone else.  
  
 _We were singing bye bye Miss American pie  
Drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry  
And good ole boys were drinkin’ whisky and rye  
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die  
This’ll be the day that I die_  
  
Jensen progresses from humming to singing under his breath to singing flat out loud at the top of his lungs. He’s always loved this song, and the need to burn off steam from the week and let it out washes over him and he throws his head back, knowing he’s acting like an idiot and not really giving a shit. He slides around on the tiles of the kitchen in socks, whipping his head to the beat in what could probably be construed as a terrible Risky Business impression if anyone were here to see it.  
  
But there isn’t, and that’s why he’s able to just enjoy it.  
  
The song slows down and Jensen throws himself back on the couch, singing into his chopsticks dramatically, half laughing, half vocalizing.  
  
 _And in the streets the children screamed  
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed  
But not a word was spoken  
The church bells all were broken_  
  
He hasn’t got a damn clue what thing song is actually about. But having something he can’t understand-- especially when Jensen understands so many, many things—is a bit refreshing.  
  
So when the song ends, he closes his eyes, tips his head back on the couch, and croons, chest loosening with something that feels like contentment as the last notes fade out.  
\--  
  
Jensen’s drowning.  
  
There’s water all around him, black freezing cold water with no surface to cling to or push off of and a force squeezing his lungs like silly putty as he thrashes. If there’s a surface, sunlight to swim towards, he hasn’t got a clue whether it’s up or down but what he does know is that his limbs are paralyzed, unable to do anything but struggle helplessly in thick water that chills and when he sucks it in he’s dying, he has to be dying. It only feels natural to call out for Dad, reaching for a hand that isn’t there, hoping someone will fight off whatever keeps holding him down. Sinking and suffocating, he’s straining to hear something as he screams ‘Dad!’ out into the water, sluggish soundless bubbles escaping from his mouth and precious air escaping from his lungs.  
  
The echo back isn’t a voice, but a song. Bye Bye Miss American Pie.  
  
This’ll be the day that I die, Jensen thinks, inhaling frigid water, unable to scream further as familiar drum beats and acoustic strum play out his funeral march in an ocean of darkness.  
  
He’s gone. He’s out, and all this struggle and strife only to end up in agony till the very end. And it’s not even peaceful. It’s not even quiet. It hurts. This hurts. At least he’s alone; at least Mom and Mac will be okay on their own. Bile that tastes like seawater rises in his throat and he’s choking, he’s drowning, he’s gasping he’s dying he’s—  
  
Vomiting. Jolting up out of sleep and vomiting bad Chinese takeout straight into the first trashcan he can find, shaking with heat flashes and choking on acrid tasting liquid that he spits out. Fucking hell, it’s just his luck that he gets food poisoning on the one night this week that was supposed to be good. It figures, it just really, really figures.  
  
What the hell had that dream been about anyway? Nightmares are one thing, night terrors and dreams about dying, but this? Jensen’s lungs ache from not breathing, like something had actually been pressing against his chest while asleep. The house is still empty; he must have dozed off after the song ended. But he had been drowning, he knows this for sure.  
  
Another wave of nausea sends him back under the riptide of projectile vomiting and Jensen hobbles to the downstairs bathroom, clutching the trashcan and feeling absolutely freezing despite the sweat his body is working up. He falls to and cradles the toilet like a gift, hating no one more than he hates himself for getting so freaked out about a stupid dream. There was no reason for it, because Jensen Ackles doesn’t have nightmares. And he most certainly doesn’t have panic attacks about nightmares.  
  
“Fuck,” Jensen spits to an empty house, choking around chunks of regurgitated beef and noodle. “Fucking shit motherfuck—“  
  
A knock sounds on the frame of bathroom door.  
  
“Mom I’m sick, so just--” Jensen turns to tell his Mom to leave him alone, but there’s no one there. Not a sound in the entire hallway save for the ticking clock.  
  
Another knock. Two feet to the left. Jensen’s stomach rolls with the threat of another puke session, and something else.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
It travels, a dragging tap along the walls, as if someone is walking the hallway and connecting dots along the walls with their knuckles, the sound moving closer and closer, no longer a solid beat but a scattered rhythm. The sound reaches until the knock is placed right on the doorframe again, moving back and forth. A beat to a song Jensen can’t hear.  
  
He leaps upward, grabbing the bathroom trashcan again and flushing the toilet with a jab of shaking fingers, sprinting down the hallway and up the stairs to his room as fast as he can without getting sick.  
  
The knocking follows, like footsteps in an alleyway, and Jensen knows there’s someone in the house. He’s sick, nearly incapacitated, and there’s someone in the house.  
  
Bolting his door behind him, Jensen shakes with fever exhaustion as he tries to gather his wits about him. He’s heard stories about squatters in big houses like this, people who actually live in empty rooms and cupboards and don’t get noticed by the homeowners for months. Maybe this house had a homeless person living somewhere in the attic, or one of the gazillion bedrooms Jensen walks by every day without opening. It wasn’t impossible, why rule it out?  
  
Danneel Harris had talked about how all the previous tenants had been anxious to leave. Was it because they had discovered the rabid homeless person stealing their personal items and knocking on the walls? It’s possible that divulging half his body water and all of his food into the sewer has made Jensen paranoid and tired, but it’s all he can think. Mac and his Mom aren’t home, thank God, but there’s someone in the house knocking, moving and knocking, coming for him.  
  
He grips the trashcan to his chest like it’ll protect him, and strains to listen.  
  
Silence blankets the house like snow, stifling, suffocating.  
  
Jensen moves to his bed, shaking, remembers with a curse that his cell phone, and the house phone, are both downstairs. The option of calling his Mom, the cops, someone, is now obsolete. The floor creaks loudly under his feet and the bed groans and Jensen wants to tell the house to shut up, because it’s going to be what gets him violently maimed, or chopped up into pieces and hidden in the walls.  
  
He listens, marking the ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs, slow and measured, amidst a lull of the rattling AC. But no footsteps. No heavy breath of a murderer.  
  
A triple knock on the door, sharp and staccato.  
  
He’s got no way of defending himself, no escape; no way will he risk exiting this room without getting killed, or worse. This is some real When-A-Stranger-Calls shit right here, and like hell he’s leaving this bed any time soon. Jensen may not be one to talk down his fighting skills, but he’s not stupid enough to think he can take down a psychopathic killer in his current condition.  
  
The knocking continues from doorway, tapping out the beat to what might actually be American Pie and Jensen shouts out, “Yeah alright, fucker, come and get me. I’m not scared of you.”  
  
The violent shaking his body is doing says different, but Jensen puts extra grit into his voice just in case.  
  
A pause in the beat, the knocking wavers, and then picks up again, tapping out American Pie as if all that’s missing is for Jensen to sing the vocals.  
  
This squatter has got to be a sick fuck, that’s for sure.  
  
There’s no escape at this point. Jumping from the third story window is about as effective as waiting for this maniac to come and kill him. Fuck it.  
  
He’s either incredibly brave or incredibly idiotic for not trying to hide, but Jensen stubbornly shoves his body down between the sheets; still cuddling with the upright trashcan like it’s a teddy bear.  
  
The knocking continues for a solid nine minutes, just long enough to complete every single verse, chorus and musical break of the song, finishing off with a resounding hard knock that seems to rattle in Jensen’s skull. The absence of knocking suddenly sounds like static, fuzzy and foreboding in his ears.  
  
The house is silent the rest of the night, but Jensen doesn’t sleep until the sun has risen and he’s puked five more times.  
  
\--  
  
Jensen spends the weekend vomiting and generally hating everything and everyone ten times more than usual, and feeling too frightened to sleep at night, napping fitfully in the day hours. He dreams in nightmares, drowning, always drowning, waking in a cold sweat sucking in lungfuls of air. Variations here and there, but always the same sensation of hopelessness, of fighting an inevitable blackness creeping upon him. When Sunday afternoon rolls around, he at least feels coherent and strong enough to drink water and nibble on Saltines when he comes down to the kitchen, reeking of sick residue.  
  
Mom tuts at him and rubs her hand through his hair affectionately, “Feeling better?” She’d heard him retching all the way from the foyer the second she had gotten home the other night, and had been checking on him in regular intervals ever since, taking his temp and pulse. In the misery of fever shakes and drowning in his sleep, her occasional palm to his hot forehead had been soothing. He still hasn’t thanked her, but his mother’s smiling at him anyway.  
  
Jensen shrugs, not trusting his throat to work properly when he speaks; he’s so dehydrated and tired. He slumps at the counter, nursing a water bottle and resigning to never eat takeout again. He pushes around words and questions in his head like checkers, prodding together enough strength and curiosity to put forth the tentative question. It takes a while, seeing as it’s the first time in about two days that he’s opening his mouth to do something other than vomit.  
  
“Hey Mom, you said Danneel Harris said the previous tenants had wanted to move out of this house quickly…did she say why?”  
  
“No. But, in rich houses like this, people probably just get bored.” She sighs, rolls her eyes.  
  
“There weren’t any problems or uh—noise complaints?” Asking straightforward about mysterious knocking inhabitants sounds a bit blunt to start off with.  
  
“Noise complaints? Did something happen when we were out the other night, is everything okay?”  
  
His Mom looks well rested. Happy, with her paperwork spread out all over the kitchen table as she works. All he has to do is open his mouth, pitch a temper tantrum, play the Dad card that he keeps tucked up his sleeve, and she’d do anything he’d say. She’d move, if he asked. The question, the demand, is right there on the tip of his tongue.  
  
But he can’t. He can’t possibly ask that they move, on the unproved existence of someone stealing his stuff and knocking on the walls. That’s a level of Out There that Jensen wants to never reach, thanks very much. If there is someone living in this house, Jensen has to find them before he can tell his Mom about them. Maybe they’re a nice homeless person. Maybe Jensen can tell them what for, maybe kick their ass and they’ll leave. They knew American Pie, after all, they might be at least semi-reasonable.  
  
The point is, asking to move isn’t an option. Not now, anyway.  
  
Jensen’s not one to back down so easily from a space that’s finally his. No way, no how.  
  
“Nothing Mom, just asking. Have you uh…heard any noises around the house? Or noticed anything missing?”  
  
“What, do you think we have rats or something?” She sighs, some of the vibrancy leaking out of her frame, and Jensen already feels like an asshsole for asking. “No, I haven’t. Not even Mackenzie has heard or seen anything, and you know how easily she gets spooked, monsters in her closet and all that crap. I’ll call Danneel and ask when the last time was that this place had an infestation inspection. You haven’t seen anything, have you Jensen?”  
  
Jensen shakes his head, because that much is true. He hasn’t seen anything whatsoever.  
  
\--  
  
He combs the house all day, walking from bedroom to bedroom, looking in closet spaces, drawers, for some sign that someone has been habituating in the rooms. But from what Jensen can see, everything remains undisturbed, the empty rooms covered in a thin sheen of perfectly untouched dust. He asks Mac a few casual questions, testing if she’s seen or heard anything, or if any of her baby dolls or stuffed animals have gone missing. By the end of the search, Jensen’s irritated and absolutely starving for something other than water and saltine crackers.  
  
Whatever the other night entailed--the drowning dream, the bad take out, the knocking--it had to have all been a part of the food poisoning. He was half delirious with fever, he wasn’t thinking straight. The only knocking he probably heard was the sound of his brain knocking around in his head from his own stupidity.  
  
He stays up late to finish homework for the next day, playing #25: ‘Sunday No-Funday’ at maximum volume long after everyone else in the house has gone to sleep. He sleeps solid through the night, no nightmares in sight.  
  
By Tuesday morning and the end of the three day weekend, Jensen’s convinced he imagined the whole thing, heads into the bathroom for a steaming hot shower to wake him up. His stomach aches with hunger, but if he showers fast, he’ll be able to actually eat a full blown meal for the first time in three days. It’s more promise for a maybe-decent day than Jensen has seen in a while.  
  
He showers until the bathroom mirror fogs up, enjoying an opportunity to scrub the weekend off of him. He steps out, tucking a towel around his waist and groping for the razor with full knowledge that he probably looks like a Wildman with a week’s worth of five o'clock shadow. Quick shave, then breakfast. Then back to Hell for a full day of higher education.  
  
Jensen’s almost starting to feel relaxed, slathering potent scented shaving cream onto his face, the tension eased off his shoulders for the first time since Friday.  
  
He’s got one hand on his razor and is angling his jaw in just the right manner when the hair on the back of his neck stands straight up. There’s no gust of wind that explains the cold that settles on him like a thin sheet of sweat, but it’s there. He can feel it.  
  
What the  _hell_?  
  
Jensen stills, lowering the razor and staring straight ahead at his reflection. The mirror’s a bit foggy, but he can see himself clearly, see the open space behind him.  
  
Apart from him, the bathroom is empty, he’s more than sure of it.  
  
But then, he’s equally sure there’s also someone in the bathroom with him.  
  
He can’t explain how he knows it, he just fucking knows it. It doesn’t matter that he can’t see them; it doesn’t matter that he can’t hear them. They’re here. The mysterious thief, the knocker, the one who really likes American Pie, they’re here. In the bathroom. With Jensen.  
  
Most likely getting ready to kill him from behind the shower curtain or something, he wouldn’t even be surprised at this rate.  
  
Jensen’s skin feels static, the water droplets on his skin cooling and causing his forearms to break out in goose bumps. He drags a shaking hand over his face, removing most of the shaving cream in the process. This doesn’t make sense, because this isn’t even possible. He’s got to be losing it. First with the disappearing possessions, then imagining that the tapping on the door was an actual song, and now this? No. This is too far. Jensen has clearly spent too much time rejecting human company and now the isolation is clearly addling his brain. He’s stir crazy, he’s hallucinating, but he is not—repeat,  _not_ —thinking that there is another person, another  _something_ , in this bathroom with him.  
  
He slaps his cheek a few times, causing shaving cream to spatter, chalking it up to not getting enough sleep last night, forcing his hands still as he reaches forward to pick up his razor once more. He leans over the sink and angles his jaw just as before, and notices that the steam on the bathroom mirror is moving.  
  
Not moving in the typical condensation-is-gathering-and-dripping way, but  _moving_. Moving-because-some-unknown-fucking-object-is-pushing-it-around-thank-you-very-much moving. The steam is being moved, but there is nothing there to move it, because Jensen’s standing stock still, and unless he unknowingly sprouted an autonomous arm that immediately got to work and started finger-painting away, there’s no one else who could do it.  
  
And yet steam continues to move, shape and form into familiar lines that slowly but surely turn into an H, then an E and onwards and onwards until  
  
H-E-L-L-O  
  
Jensen stares, mouth agape, and if the goose bumps suddenly become goose mountains and he starts to quake a little in his towel, well, there ain’t a goddamn person in this world who can fault him because this? This is unfuckingreal. His teeth are chattering and for some odd reason he feels the need to cover up his naked chest, crossing his arms instinctively like there’s something from which he needs to protect himself.  
  
The spirit, the presence, whatever the hell is sending him a Hallmark Bathroom Greeting card, pauses towards the end of the ovular bottom of the ‘O’ and, as an afterthought, tacks on a period after the end of the word.  
  
Great. It knows punctuation. How  _quaint_.  
  
“Jensen!” His Mom hollers upstairs. “Get down here or I’m taking off without you! We’re running late as it is!”  
  
The interruption is just the boost of courage and reality that Jensen needs to stride forward and swipe the mirror clean, no trace of the message behind.  
  
\--  
  
Here’s the thing.  
  
Ghosts, they’re not real.  
  
Like most truths of humanity and life, there are a select few things Jensen is very sure of, beliefs and practically, natural laws that just  _are_  and there should never be a reason to question them and any situation that does cause one to question them probably means they should in fact be questioning their own sanity.  
  
The sky is blue, the sun rises in the East, and there is no such thing as ghosts.  
  
There’s no such thing as ghosts.  
  
There’s no such things as ghosts is what Jensen tells himself, at least, as he practically tumbles down the stairs at the same time he yanks on clothes that smell half decent from under the general location of his bed, and leaps into the car.  
  
There’s no such thing as ghosts is what he thinks, turning around to stare at the house as soon as he’s in his seat.  
  
There’s no such thing as ghosts, he reminds himself, peering at the upstairs window, not exactly sure what he’s waiting for but hoping he gets it soon. A pale white face pressed to the glass, a gory or creepy smile, some sort of general appearance from whatever…whoever, is taking residence in his living space.  
  
But there’s no one. There’s the rain falling and the October fog swirling around the house but no sign of life inside the house.  
  
Not that he’s really looking for signs of  _life_  here. Not anymore, anyway.  
  
In the end, it doesn’t really matter what it is or if it shows its face...if it even has a face. He turns back to face the front as Mom pulls out of the driveway, worry and trepidation hollowing out a cave in his stomach. He doesn’t look back, but the hairs on the back of his neck still stand straight, as if eyes have been following him all the way from the Estate.  
  
The options Jensen has for exactly how to deal with a situation like this are as such. He can pretend none of this happened and keep ignoring it (and probably be killed in his sleep for his rudeness), he can tell his Mom and get shipped off to the nearest psych-ward (where his privacy would be anything but private no-fucking-thank-you), he can wake up from this nightmare and get back to real life (he’s been waiting for that to happen since he was ten years old. It still hasn’t) or he can deal with this.  
  
Jensen is good at dealing with things, pre-programmed with the notion of adapting or perishing. He didn’t complain when his Mom decided to move, he didn’t make a peep when Dad left, and he didn’t even protest when Josh decided to go with him. He’s taken the fact that life sucks at face value, and he’s rolled with it, grown from it, become stronger for it.  
  
He’s done enough adapting in the last seven years to be considered a Darwinist Miracle by this point. Surely after all that, he can deal with this, right?  
  
Chomping on the three pieces of spearmint gum he just shoved into his mouth, Jensen thinks, allows the new reality and adaption to slide and clink into a place of acceptance, like a quarter to a gumball machine.  
  
Okay. So ghosts are real.  
  
Sadly enough, in Jensen’s book of shitty life experiences; it’s not the worst thing he’s ever had to come to terms with.  
  
Oh it’s inconvenient, and Jensen’s already giving that ghost a long list of insults and contemplating the best way to destroy it so he can be alone. With the acceptance of such a phenomenon as a motherfucking  _ghost_  comes the immediate feeling of offense, which Jensen reacts to with bristling anger. Finally,  _finally_  they’d gotten a place that didn’t completely suck ass, and it was haunted? Not only that, but haunted by a ghost that seemed particularly fixated on Jensen? And stealing Jensen’s stuff? And scaring the living Dickens out of him?  
  
Nope. Fuck that. Fuck that ghost and fuck  _anyone_  who thinks they can bother Jensen Ackles and that he’ll just take it lying down.  
  
The arrival to school unveils a stone cold resolve to deal with this upfront.  
  
Jensen’s getting answers now, and he’s getting answers the right way. He’ll wait, and in the meantime gather as much information as he can on ghosts, cull research and hoard factoids and tips on how to deal with it. He’ll wait, see if it makes any moves, tries to screw with him anymore, and he’ll wait for exactly the right moment when it pisses him off just the right amount.  
  
And  _then_  he’ll kick its ass.


	3. Chapter 3

He tells his Mom he’s got a group project to work on at the last minute, and as soon as the bell rings and effectively ends the school day, Jensen’s off and wandering down the main street of Singer, making a beeline towards the Library.

Singer is a painfully small town, and it’s all too easy for Jensen to locate the Public Library.  
  
Unlike what seems to be every other building in the main town square, the library is  _huge_. At least, large enough to give half the libraries he’s seen a run for their money (not that Jensen goes to libraries all that often. There are people in libraries, and truth be told, he’d rather not).  
  
It’s empty, thank God. He checks over his shoulder, casting a wary glance around before ducking off to the side, avoiding the main atrium and delving into the deepest part of the book stacks. This is research Jensen probably could have done in his own room (if functioning WiFi that wasn’t the speed of a glacier was a thing that existed on the Harris Estate), but with the unwelcome guest and Jensen’s impending mental breakdown it seems like a better idea that he conducts his research in an open and safe space, where he’s sure no one will read over his shoulder. Not that he has any more idea what he’s doing here than he would at home, but he at least feels safer.  
  
Jensen walks to a computer that looks like it’s from the early nineties, and settles in for the long haul.  
  
It takes him a minute of staring at the blank Google search bar before he so much as makes a move towards the keys.  
  
Just say it, he thinks, giving himself a headache with how hard it is to type the words. A scene from one of those ridiculous vampire movies Mackenzie watches pops into his head of a girl whispering ‘Vampire’ to absolutely no one’s surprise, and he scoffs, refusing to be that overdramatic about a situation that needs to be dealt with.  
  
“Ghosts,” he grunts aloud, punching each of the letters with individual vigor.  
  
Half an hour later, he’s come up with nothing.  
  
There’s loads of websites on paranormal activity, make no mistake, pages and pages of firsthand accounts and ‘proof’ that has Jensen rolling his eyes so hard he thinks he’s going to strain something. Honestly. People see their own reflection and shout ‘poltergeist!’ into the internet abyss, or so it seems. Apart from general wackadoos and religious nuts and fantasy-television series fans, few of these people actually seem to know what they’re talking about, and even those who do sound like complete and utter jackasses. Jensen pours over web pages, tries different search subjects, all the variations of the word ‘ghost’ he can think of, but all he hits upon is a vast  _vast_  amount of urban legends and general bullshit. There’s no way in hell he’s going to pay forty dollars for repellant spray or rock salt crystals to quote unquote “keep the entities in your home at bay”.  
  
He doesn’t need to get rid of it, yet. He doesn’t even know what exactly ‘it’  _is_.  
  
He just needs to know if there’s a ghost living in his bedroom. Is that too much to ask?  
  
Jensen cracks a yawn and pushes against drowsiness. What he really needs is caffeine. But, being that he never really did try to navigate this town apart from today, he’s got no clue where to get a cup around here.  
  
There’s a woman at the front desk, Jensen can see her from one hundred feet away because she’s got hair bright enough that her head looks like it’s on fire from over here. Kind of like their realtor’s, but less dyed and styled and more messy and very short. She definitely looks like she doesn’t ever leave the library, pale skin and thick rimmed glasses not so unlike Jensen’s, he observes as he walks towards her, her body bent over a thick book, eyes darting back and forth as she mouths words silently. Jensen stands there, awkwardly, waiting for her to look up and notice, before finally giving up the pretense of politeness and clearing his throat loudly.  
  
Red looks up, startled. “Oh. Sorry! I didn’t even hear you come up. Sometimes I get caught up in the words and everything just sort of falls away and I forget myself. Has that ever happened to you? Well, of course it has. You’re in a library. You like books and reading. As do most of the people that come in and stay in here for hours at a time. Silly of me. It’s been a long day, and working a full eight hour shift after pulling an all-nighter to balance my checkbook and that marathon of Korean Dramas wasn’t a good idea, in retrospect. But was I supposed to know that Goo Jun-Pyo would steal my heart in the pursuit of Geum Jan-di? Don’t do K-Dramas, kids, that’s the lecture we need to get in high school. Screw Meth and Coke,  _this_  stuff is the real crack. Anyway, welcome to Singer Main Library, how can I assist you?”  
  
She says all this very fast, with little to no breaths taken in between sentences, and in all honesty, it’s actually kind of terrifying. Her t-shirt reads ‘She Wants the D(estruction of the Patriarchy)’ in angry bold font, but Jensen’s eyes snag on the name tag, bright and official looking, pinned to her t-shirt. He squints to read the name clearer but he probably looks like he’s checking out her chest, so he looks back down at his feet, feeling vulnerable, as if he was the one who just shared the entire detailed agenda of his life.  
  
“Uh. Want. Coffee,” Jensen grunts, as coherent sentences and the ability to converse leave him entirely.  
  
The librarian raises an eyebrow, suddenly going from perky and helpful to suspicious and judgmental in three seconds flat. Jensen backtracks, trying to remember that while one word sentences may work for communicating with the dead via bathroom steam, it certainly won’t work with the living. “I mean. Uh. Do you know where I can find coffee around here?”  
  
Red’s shrewd expression softens, and she smiles. “I’d suggest Carver’s Cafe. It looks all like greasy grub but I swear they’ve got the blackest cup of Joe this washed up town has to offer; kept me up on many a night. Second left down the Main Street and a right and you’re there.”  
  
“Thanks, uh,” Jensen glances surreptitiously at her chest again.  
  
“Felicia.” She grins brilliantly, seemingly charmed by Jensen’s horribly awkward socializing skills. “PhD in Library Science, resident gamer girl, Korean Drama Addict and expert maker of chocolate chip pancakes.”  
  
Jensen blinks, feeling disarmed and attacked for no reason whatsoever. “Nice to meet you, Felicia.” He nods curtly before ambling out of the library and into the dusky light of the street. He’ll stop by the diner, and then call his Mom to come pick him up, saying he’s done with his project for the day.  
  
He’ll have to try again tomorrow.  
  
\--  
  
Jensen gets ready for bed the exact same way as usual, deliberate in every movement he makes. He’s not scared, he’s  _not_. Despite the slight tremor as he brushes and flosses and pulls on his pajamas, Jensen is not scared of being watched by something that he can’t see.  
  
The fact of the matter is that if this…this ghost--if that’s what it is--wanted to kill him or commit some sort of Bloody Mary Style Homicide, well, it’s had plenty of chances to do so.  
  
He sleeps through the night, and so begins a pattern which continues for the next four days: wake up, get dressed, ignore whatever items may be missing from his clothes pile or backpack, go to school, then hit the library stacks until as late as possible, before calling his Mom to have her pick him up.  
  
All the while, he’s careful not to acknowledge that he thinks something is going on. He’s sure It’s watching, positive, even. But Jensen’s not about to give It the satisfaction of thinking he’s scared. Because he’s not. Scared. Scared would require knowing what he’s actually dealing with, and Jensen doesn’t even have that. So the day to day routine is spent as normal and calm as he can make it.  
  
Half the time he forgets that he’s supposed to be waiting for something to happen because It is…It’s quiet. Apart from hiding his socks or underwear, there have been no other taps on the door. Which, as comforting as that is, is simultaneously irksome because now Jensen can’t even begin to figure out Its motivation for making noise or sending messages. He’d go so far as to say that It’s playing games with him, playing coy, but assigning It personality traits seems to be a level of adaptation that Jensen’s not quite willing to admit having reached yet.  
  
By his fifth day at the Library, Jensen has come up with all of one method of keeping track of whatever is living in his house. He buys a crappy composition notebook for forty nine cents at the office supply store near school and begins chronicling each Happening he can remember since moving in. The journal stays in his bag, and he’s careful to never take it out at home, and though writing everything down tells him absolutely jack shit, it allows him to look for patterns in the ghost’s behavior, few and far between as they are.  
  
He’s jotting down the most recent activity (‘October 14th, razor went missing. Haven’t shaved in two days. Still waiting to get it back’) when a shadow falls over his small lit corner in the depths of the library.  
  
“Howdy.” Felicia the Redhead is back, and she’s clutching not one, but two cups of coffee. What’s even weirder is she’s holding one out towards Jensen, as if it’s for him.  
  
Jensen looks down at her hand, then back up, brow furrowing. What is she doing?  
  
“I recognize a fellow addict when I see one.” She grins, extends the proffered the cup with a smile. It’s not until the smile starts to fade that he realizes that the cup  _is_  meant for him. When he lunges to take it to overcompensate for his stupidity, she adds, “I have refrigerated cream and also sugar tucked away in the staff area, but I take you for a purist, am I correct?”  
  
Her smile looks jovial enough, but Jensen can’t help but feel defensive for simply talking to her. It’s rare that people talk to Jensen, and if they do, it’s typically because they want something.  
  
Call him a cynic, but he’s never wrong about this one.  
  
“May I have a seat?” she asks.  
  
If Jensen’s muteness is a turn-off, it’s not one Felicia the Librarian pays heed to, pulling out a wooden chair and seating herself in a way that’s a little too close for comfort for Jensen. Not invasive, but friendly, like she’s known Jensen her whole life.  
  
He doesn’t like it when people know him. Even less when they act like they  _think_  they do.  
  
Felicia raises an eyebrow, and to cover for his continued lack of response, Jensen takes a sip of the coffee. It scalds, and he chokes, sucking in dusty library air in hopes of cooling the burning in his mouth. Felicia chuckles, producing a napkin from one of the pockets in her jean overall shorts, and offers it.  
  
“So,” she presses on as he sets the coffee down to cool. “What kind of project are you working on? What’s your dissertation?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I mean, you’re in college, right? It’s just, I don’t see high schoolers come along as often for as long as you do. The amount of hours you spend here? You’ve gotta be a student from Tulane, right?”  
  
“I’m in high school,” Jensen blurts, sounding absolutely offended despite not actually feeling so. “But this isn’t for school.”  
  
“That’s surprising. I’ve never seen a high schooler sit still for as long as you do. I should have known. Ghosts and Occult? Way too cool of a subject for a high school project.” Felicia winks conspiratorially as Jensen sputters. “I looked at your Web Search History after you left. Sorry! I just kept thinking ‘this kid can’t be searching for porn, can he?’ I mean with teenage boys who come here to use the computers, it’s usually porn. So I checked your history and boy was I surprised. I mean you were pouring over the web for ghost stuff! Lemme guess, you’re writing a scary story? Making a short film? Trying to find something to do for Halloween?”  
  
This woman talks way too fast, and way too much. But it allows Jensen to mull around his options in his head, figure out an excuse that doesn’t make him sound mentally unstable. Felicia looks cool enough that she could probably handle him either way, but he’s learned by now not to take risks.  
  
“Just curious.” He shrugs, attempting what he thinks is a charming smile but probably looks like he smells a rotten egg. “There’s not a lot of stuff to do here in Singer. ‘M pretty bored.”  
  
“Sorry but, if you’re trying to find the nearest cemetery so you can try and summon a spirit come Halloween, you’re barking up the wrong tree.” Felicia sighs, kicking her legs up onto the computer desk. “I mean, the Internet has got a lot of information, but the majority of it is bullshit. People will believe anything as long as it’s got an official sounding URL.”  
  
“Tell me about it.” Is there a reason she’s still talking to him? Had he not made his intentions perfectly clear when he’d secluded himself in the farthest and darkest possible corner of the Library? Jensen squints at her. Her body language suggests nothing intentionally seductive, and he’s had the unfortunate luck of having people flirt with him. It’s never ended well, so at least he doesn’t have to prepare himself for  _that_  shitfest.  
  
“Everyone knows all the good stuff’s in the old books that no one bothered to transfer to online sources. You wanna talk ghosts and occult? The Internet’s got nothing on my stash of know how.”  
  
“What kind of know how?” Jensen straightens.  
  
“I’m a bit of a collector.” Felicia shrugs, looking just as impressed with herself as Jensen is. “Started young, watched way too much Ghost Whisperer starring Jennifer Love Hewitt as a kid, and somehow just ended up collecting all the books I could find. Most of it’s ghosts and spirits info, but, I can appreciate delving into other realms. You can blame Buffy the Vampire Slayer for that one.”  
  
“So, you have books on ghosts? And occult? Are they legit? Can I see them?” Jensen asks.  
  
“Well, seeing as those are the most words I’ve heard out of your mouth within the entire week put together, you sure can.” She smiles. “I keep my stash locked up in the restricted section under the front desk. I’d um…” she stops, looking cowed.  
  
“What?”  
  
“If I were to let you behind the desk to look at them, it’d have to be for a reason. Either you’re a library employee or a volunteer or—“  
  
“What do I do to become a volunteer?” The words are out without apology, and though Jensen is going to hate himself eventually for committing to extracurricular activities, he’ll do it if it means getting some actual concrete answers.  
  
“Funny you should ask.” She slaps the form down right in front of him, produced from another of the large pockets in her overalls. “This form hereby states that you will volunteer at Singer Library for a minimum of two hours per week. I’d prefer you come on weekends, since we’re always understaffed then and could use the extra hands, but then again, I’m basically all we have staff wise, so whenever you decide to show up will work for me.”  
  
There’s a magically produced pen to go with the magically produced volunteer form, and Jensen fills it out. “I feel like I just sold my soul.”  
  
Felicia laughs. “Ah, cute  _and_  a sense of humor! Extra kudos in my book. This is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship, I can tell. Welcome to the Singer Library…” She glances down at the form as he writes out his name, “Jensen Ackles.”  
  
Jensen blushes, of all stupid things to do, and hands over the volunteer form. “Lead the way.”  
  
\--  
  
Felicia, as it turns out, wasn’t pulling his leg. Her Spiritual and Occult collection could easily be its own section in the library, volumes upon volumes of tomes stuffed under the cupboards of the front desk. Jensen doesn’t even question, just pulls the first one out he can grab and plops himself down at the nearest desk, ravenous and eager.  
  
The text is in tiny faded print and Jensen has to squint with glasses and a borrowed flashlight from Felicia to clearly make out each word, but he attacks the work with a vigor he’s never had with any homework assignment. By the time his cell phone rings, Mom hollering into his ear about how she’s not Jensen’s chauffeur and cannot be expected to wait, Jensen’s shocked to find that three hours have flown by, and he’s barely made it to the end of a single chapter. His head is spinning, and he shoves the thick leather tome under the lock and key compartment of the desk and bids Felicia a hasty farewell before dashing out to the car.  
  
They drive in silence for a while, and Jensen can tell by the way Donna sits in the driver’s seat, limbs lax, none of their usual energy, that it’s been a long day for both of them.  
  
“Look,” Mom sighs, pulling her hair up into a scrunchie at a red light. “I understand that school is important to you. But I can’t do these late night pickups anymore, Jensen. Not when I have a son who is perfectly capable of driving himself with his own truck.”  
  
She rolls the window down, humid air filling the car. For all the functioning air conditioning that they have in the car, Mom has always preferred the windows down, open air, space to breathe as she drives.  
  
“You know I hate that truck.”  
  
“You also apparently hate it when I get a good night’s sleep!” She jokes, softly, stifling a yawn. She turns onto the lone highway that leads to the house, blinking slowly. “Must be a pretty exciting subject to have you up working so late. What are you studying?”  
  
The worst thing about Jensen’s Mother is that her curiosity, her questions, her concerns, are always genuine. Jensen’s life would probably be a whole lot easier if his Mom didn’t give a shit about him.  
  
“I got a job. Or, um, a volunteer job.” Jensen’s head is pounding but the last thing he needs or wants in this moment is to explain to his Mother that he’s studying up on spirits and occult practice in his free time. “I figured the extracurricular hours would look good on my applications. You know. For college.”  
  
The Magic Word works, thank Christ. Donna’s Concerned Mom face tapers off into a Proud Mom face and she turns back to the road, fighting to keep from smiling, and Jensen feels like a complete tool for manipulating her so easily, but it works for the time being, and staves off the fight a bit longer.  
  
“I didn’t know you were looking into college. I thought you said you didn’t want to.”  
  
The truth about college is that Jensen  _doesn’t_  want to go. Not with the full knowledge that any higher education would be paid for by someone he didn’t ever want to owe anything. However, Jensen didn’t have a penny to his name. So rather than try for scholarships (he isn’t nearly ambitious or talented enough to get them), he’d announced a long time ago to his Mom that he didn’t want to go to college. Maybe earn an online degree just to have it, but nothing over the top, or expensive. Absolutely nothing Dad would have to get involved in.  
  
Still, Jensen’s told enough lies today that he can surely get away with just one more.  
  
“I’m thinking on it.” He stares out the window, chewing on the inner meat of his cheek.  
  
“Well,” Mom does smile, encouragingly and warmly, and Jensen feels the self loathing hit him like a tidal wave because his Mom has an asshole for a son. “I’m very happy to hear that. But either way, with the way work is taking up my time and you know how I feel about leaving Mac home alone for too long…I think it’d be best if you started using your own vehicle to drive to the Library and to school.”  
  
“Mom…”  
  
“Please, Jensen.” Her voice sounds strained, careful. “I know—I know you don’t have a fond sentiment shared with where it came from, but we just can’t afford to carpool together.” The headlights of a passing car wash over her face, and for a split second she almost looks ghoulish, the years since they left Dad setting into the lines of her face, cavernous and exhausted. And then they’re gone, and she’s smiling wryly again. “You’re going to have to suck it up, kiddo, at least until you can afford to buy a different one, okay?”  
  
Somehow in the midst of the discussion she snuck one of her hands off the steering wheel to ruffle Jensen’s hair, the gesture brief enough to be more affectionate than annoying.  
  
“Yeah. Okay, Mom.”  
  
\--  
  
So apparently, Ouija boards are a thing.  
  
Jensen’s more annoyed than amazed by that fact, seeing as he’d blown off numerous articles and accounts that had even mentioned the object, discrediting them as farce. While those stories probably  _were_ made up, according to Felicia’s books Ouija boards themselves are actually quite legit.  
  
He’s spent the last week reading the one single volume he’d started. It’s been tedious and exhausting and Jensen probably understood barely half of what the book actually was about, but if memory serves him correctly, he’s sure that a) there’s a ghost in his house b) it is not to be confused with a spirit, poltergeist, or echo and c) the ghost only seems to want to interact with him.  
  
And as much as Jensen is absolutely  _thrilled_  by having his stuff go missing and bathroom fog messages being left on his mirror, he really isn’t all that much a fan of being haunted. In fact, all he really wants is to be left alone.  
  
So thanks to birthday money from Dad he’s never spent before and Amazon.com, he receives a brand new Ouija Board and Spirit Candles the following week. According to Felicia, who pipes in with her own trivia if Jensen has questions, his best bet on communicating with a spirit is on a night when ghosts are more likely to make contact with humans.  
  
It’s usually an excuse to get wasted and kick over other people’s pumpkins, but All Hallows Eve turns out to be the best night to play Ouija Board.  
  
The week leading up to Halloween, the ghost is quiet. It seems to have realized that Jensen’s up to something, and the stolen socks have tapered off from being daily to only every four days or so. While he occasionally hears knocks in the middle of the night, there’s still no physical evidence he can capture, not that he’s got the energy to try. It’s not harming him, so if he can just get it to go somewhere else, that’d be great.  
  
\--  
  
“Everyone else is dressed as a princess! But I get to be the wicked witch who eats them all!” Mackenzie struts around the foyer with her oversized robe (Mom’s graduation gown) and scary green makeup. Donna’s grabbing her keys from her bag and checking to make sure she has her cell and wallet, while Jensen stands at the base of the stairs, jittery. He can almost feel the small Zippo Felicia had lent him burning in his pocket. She’d offered to come over and help with the candles and the board, but the idea of someone else seeing the completely barren space of Jensen’s room was almost too humiliating to consider, so he’d bowed out and wished her a Happy Halloween, thanking her for the coffee that always seemed to magically end up in his hand whenever he walked into the library.  
  
“You sure you’ll be okay to stay here alone? I left candy here, though I’m not sure we’ll get any trick or treaters on this side of town…”  
  
“Mom. Relax, I’ll be fine. I’ve got macaroni to make and bad horror remakes to marathon, what could be more okay than that?”  
  
He thinks it would be excessive to mention the part where he’s going to try and communicate with the dead. What Mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her.  
  
“You sure you don’t want to come with us?” She asks. “I’m sure all of Mac’s friends would adore you.”  
  
“Gross, Mom.” Mackenzie rolls her eyes. “I don’t need my friends drooling over Jensen. He’s not even that cute.”  
  
“Nonsense! Your brother is very handsome. He’s got  _my_  genes, after all.”  
  
“Alright, that’s enough talk about my ridiculously good looks.” Jensen herds them out the door, rushing upstairs as soon as he hears the sound of tires on gravel fade off down the driveway.  
  
He gently unfolds the Ouija Board and places it smack dab in the center of the wooden floor in his room. He considers leaving the door open, in case the ghost is in another part of the house, but no, that’s absolutely stupid because ghosts don’t need doors. Which begs the question why the ghost bothered to knock on the door a few weeks ago, but Jensen doesn’t have time to consider the motivations of the dead. It’s both too creepy and too confusing in this moment.  
  
Jensen flicks the lighter and dabs it at each of the candles he’s set up in the four corners of the room, casting a dim, barely visible light about, enough that he can see the outline of his bed and his own shadow as he crosses to open the curtains, lets the baleful moonlight spill in.  
  
All right, then. He pads over to the floor and eases down, crossing his legs and setting his palms on his knees, regarding the Ouija board cautiously. He’s read the instructions so many times that he’s more or less got them memorized, but still gnaws on his bottom lip for a minute before sucking in a bracing breath, reaching forward and placing his fingertips on the planchette in the center of the board, running his eyes over the carefully painted on alphabet, and the ‘YES’ ‘NO’ and ‘GOODBYE’ spelled out in three points on the board.  
  
With so little research on the stuff, he doesn’t have much preparation for exactly how he’s supposed to go about this. But Jensen doesn’t really give a fuck so he dives right in, determined to resolve the problem as soon as possible. Here goes nothing.  
  
“Uh. Hi.”  
  
Nothing.  
  
Jensen clears his throat, feels more like he’s asking someone to prom rather than asking just to speak with someone who’s clearly dead.  
  
“I uh…I call upon you, spirit of this estate. If you’re here, uh, with me, give me a sign and help a guy out, yeah?”  
  
It’s silent enough to hear a pin drop. The shadows lengthen and enlarge in the flickering candlelight.  
  
Jensen rolls his eyes and barks, “Look, I know you’re there, I know you’ve been stealing my shit and fucking with me, so why don’t you just cut the crap and quit playing shy, yeah?”  
  
Whether or not that was the wise thing to say doesn’t particularly matter, the room gives a full blown shudder that sends the flames of the black candles shrinking to a near extinguished size. The muscles in Jensen’s shoulders twitch involuntarily as he tenses, waiting for the candles to return to normal and the sudden creeping chill to leave his system.  
  
They don’t and it doesn’t.  
  
“Ohhhkay, so I’m guessing that’s my sign. Are you…uh…are you a ghost?”  
  
Jensen hadn’t really been sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. The planchette lurches forward, his fingers dragging with it as if stuck, trailing slowly to the right corner of the board where they stop over the painted on ‘YES’.  
  
“Are you…a mean ghost?”  
  
He’s expecting the lurch of the piece this time but it’s still just as startling, like magnets are guiding his hand across the board to hover over the ‘NO’.  
  
“Okay. Well. You’re a nice ghost. So there’s that. Good.” Jensen fidgets, adjusting his position as he glances about. He should have thought to pull on a hoodie, because all of three minutes ago the air in the room had been heady and humid, but now it’s significantly cooler than that.  
  
“Do you have a name? Not that I mind calling you Ghost, but at the rate we’re going, I might just call you Casper and leave it at that.”  
  
Another shudder of the candles, and Jensen blows out fog when he exhales in a laugh. “Alright. No Casper, message received. What’s your name, then?”  
  
The piece is slower to move this time around, maybe because the Ghost has to put more effort into it, and the letters are so clustered together it’s easy to miss. But Jensen waits, patiently, as It spells out a name very, very slowly, J E N S E  
  
“Hey now. That’s my name. You can’t have it,” Jensen finds himself snapping, chills rising on his arms at how utterly freaky this is. The Ghost either doesn’t hear him or doesn’t care, simply spelling his name over and over again. There is no sound but the dry scrape of the planchette as it moves over the board, increasing in speed as it moves over the letters of his name, confident, almost eager. Something, some _one_  is moving that piece, watching Jensen’s face, waiting for Jensen to react, most likely to run away. Jensen does his best to keep his wits about him, and the only way he can seem to do that is to keep talking. “Are you telling me you don’t remember your own name? Or was it just a really bad name? I promise I won’t judge. Or, maybe I’ll judge, but I won’t laugh--”  
  
There’s a hesitation in the planchette as it’s on its eighth round of spelling out ‘Jensen’, and then changes course on its way to the first E, scooting along to stop at the A, then the R, then back up to the E, before stopping resolutely over the D.  
  
“Jared? That’s your name?”  
  
The piece moves:  _YES_  
  
“Well, Jared, now that we’ve met and become acquainted, I unfortunately have to tell you to leave the premises. You see, I kind of want to be left alone, and I don’t really think anyone likes having a ghost in their house, so if you could just pack up your bags and shuffle off, I’m sure there’s some great empty houses that you’d love to haunt—“  
  
 _NO_  
  
“No?” Jensen bristles. “What do you mean, no? I’m the one who’s living here, not you! All I want is some peace and quiet—“  
  
The piece jumps around the board so fast Jensen nearly lets go of it.  
  
 _S T U C K_  
  
“You’re stuck? You can’t…you’re stuck in this house?”  
  
 _YES._  
  
“How long have you been here?”  
  
No response. Whether that’s an admission of ignorance or Jared-the-Ghost just didn’t tell him, Jensen doesn’t really care. He’s irritated enough as it is at the idea of the ghost being stuck here, the details don’t even matter at this point. Jared still has the option of being a quiet ghost, the kind that wasn’t bent on playing American Pie on the walls and doors and writing hello on the bathroom mirror.  
  
“What do you want?” Jensen asks gruffly. “If you can’t leave, and you can’t seem to shut up, what do you want?”  
  
A long silence. Jensen glances from the board around the room, long past expecting to see a figure in the shadows, a visible someone hiding from him.  
  
Sixty seconds or so pass before the planchette lurches forward, startling Jensen from his train of thought.  
  
“F,” he whispers under his breath, tracing the letters, “R, I, E, N, D. A friend? Is there someone here? Is there another ghost you’re looking for? A friend who lives here? Or in another house?”  
  
 _NO_  
  
“I don’t understand. You said you want a friend. What friend?”  
  
 _J E N S E N_  
  
“Oh hell no!” Jensen leaps up from the board, pacing back and forth and fuming silently.  
  
Meanwhile, the Ouija Board is operating of its own volition now, the piece swooping around and about letters spelling out the same two words in alternate unison. Friend and Jensen and Jensen and friend and friend and Jensen and--  
  
“Knock it off!” Jensen shouts, the candles dimming significantly. “I…okay. Give me a minute.”  
  
Jensen pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to keep in mind that in the grand total of options he has, there is pretty much one.  
  
Getting rid of the ghost—Jared, its name is Jared—isn’t possible at the moment, not until he has the proper research and materials to get the job done. He’d barely even tapped the mountain of information on exorcisms, and couldn’t even fathom the amount of effort that would take. No, no he wouldn’t get rid of the ghost unless it became a problem.  
  
Right now, unfortunately, it’s more of a nuisance than an actual problem.  
  
Jensen doesn’t have the funds to call a professional, one of those so-called ‘mediums’ that helps ghosts cross over, according to his research. He’ll have to try more home grown methods. See if he can’t pull up some ‘Ghost Extermination for Dummies’ at the library tomorrow. Not that he’ll use it, but then again, he should probably be prepared for any outcome at this point.  
  
Speaking objectively, a ghost who wants Jensen Ackles as a friend is quite the curveball, either way.  
  
“Alright. Here’s the deal.” Jensen sits back on the floor and places his fingers back on the planchette. “I can…cope with having you around. You’re annoying as shit, let’s make that crystal clear, but as long as you don’t make too much of a ruckus, or go near my Mom or my sister…you can stay.”  
  
Silence.  
  
“But let me make this additionally crystal clear, Jared The Friendly Ghost. We are not friends. I am not your friend. You live in…haunt in…my house and you steal my clothes and generally terrorize me to the point where I actually want to kill you,  _again_. So you can stay, but just know that I’m not happy about it, and if you piss me off enough, you will be gone. Got that?”  
  
There’s no response whatsoever, so Jensen takes it to represent a grudging yes as he straightens and begins to put away the Ouija Board, flicking the lights back on and blowing out each of the candles, hoping the wax will cool quickly enough so he can hide them, just in case Mom stops by to say hello when she gets home with Mac.  
  
It’s barely nine o'clock at night, but Jensen’s body is suddenly completely sapped of energy as the adrenaline runs out and the exhaustion kicks in. Judging by the silence and lack of movement, Jared is either there and keeping quiet, or left as soon as the conversation ended. Either way Jensen may as well stop pretending there’s no one there when they’re both aware Jared is actually there.  
  
Jensen stares into the dark of his bedroom, the moonlight outside casting his shadow on the door, disfigured and looming. He feigns nonchalance and unawareness as he discards his clothes and crawls into bed, grateful that the temperature seems to have returned to normal. He doesn’t bother to grope for his reading glasses or even consider putting on music. He simply stares up at the ceiling and, hoping that it’s listening, says, firmly and pointedly, “Goodnight, Jared.”  
  
There’s no response. Jared seems to have either become just as exhausted as Jensen, or he’s left the room and wants nothing more to do with Jensen for the time being.  
  
Either works for him.  
  
There’s a feeble triple tap on the window, and then silence.  
  
Laughing hoarsely, Jensen punches his pillow into a more comfortable shape and closes his eyes.  
  
Considering the days’ events, he should be screaming and crying, having some violent attack in response to all of this. Maybe he’s good at denial, or maybe he’s just really good at adapting.  
  
It doesn’t matter either way; he’s out like a light in seconds.


	4. Chapter 4

 

The morning after Halloween leaves Jensen almost reluctant to open his eyes when he wakes up. He’s not sure that keeping his eyes closed helps per se, but the idea that he can keep reality shut out of his head for a little while longer is comforting, to say the least.  
  
As a little kid, prolonging the inevitable wake up became habit. It came with the unspoken rule that seeing was believing. If he could just keep his eyes closed long enough, he wouldn’t have to see the hotel or apartment wall his Mother had relocated him to, nor the tiny bed he had to share with Mac, nor his Mom, sleeping alone on a mattress pad without anyone next to her.  
  
It was ridiculous, a childish concept, but for the few moments he was awake, eyes firmly shut tight, it was nice to imagine that things were as they used to be, to make up some fantasy happy ending where Dad never left and Mom never cried and Jensen never felt sad, or angry.  
  
Jensen doesn’t pretend anymore like he did then, but it’s comforting enough to think he still can.  
  
Behind the safe darkness of closed lids, Jensen thinks out words in big block letters, willing them to be truth. Dad never left, Josh never left, Mom never took them, there is no ghost named Jared living in his bedroom. He’ll walk down the old familiar staircase and there will be fresh omelets and coffee and Dad will be reading the Sunday paper and that’ll be that.  
  
His eyes snap open, taking in a blank wall connected to a giant room.  
  
It had been nice while it lasted, but with morning comes reality, unfortunately.  
  
“Morning Jared,” Jensen stretches like a cat, scratching unabashedly at his morning wood and yawning in the most vocal way possible, “You here?”  
  
No response.  
  
It’s curious, how Jared’s presence works. The notebook he’s been keeping shows significant time gaps here and there. The question Jensen’s most curious about is if Jared’s even aware of when he shows up? Where he goes? When he goes? What exactly are the technicalities and intricacies of the ghost world that Jared is aware of, and how many of them can he manipulate?  
  
Jensen sheds his boxers and clambers into the shower, cranking the pressure up to wake him further. Assuming he stays here throughout his senior year, or at least until he turns eighteen in March, what will Jensen do about Jared? Will Jared give Jensen privacy, will Jensen even be allowed privacy? Had he seen Jensen naked? Not that Jensen was ashamed of anything he had to show off, but it was the principle of the thing! What if Jared was the ghost of some pervy old man who preyed on kids, and Jensen was just his all-access peep show? And furthermore, what if Jared did want to hurt him? What if Jared tried to kill him in his sleep? What if Jared had already  _tried_  to kill him, but Jensen just wasn’t aware of it? What if—  
  
Jensen slaps his hands against the shower wall and rests his head against the cool surface of the tile, sucking in gasps of air as dread and terror practically shut his system down with how intensely he feels them.  
  
“Shit.” He chokes, swallowing suds and hot water before he spits the rest out. “Shit, shit, shit fucking  _shit_.”  
  
It’s fucking ridiculous to fall to pieces in the shower like he’s starring in some really bad romantic drama, but Jensen’s all but losing it as reality clashes with everything he’s ever known to be true because ghosts aren’t goddamn real and if they are they goddamn well shouldn’t be.  
  
This is temporary, Jensen chides himself, calm the fuck down motherfucker; this is temporary. With more time and more research, he’ll find a way to help Jared move on peacefully into the next realm. It’ll work. This will work.  
  
It has to.  
  
Jensen finishes the rest of the shower relatively quickly, emerging into a steam filled bathroom and wrapping a towel around his waist. He halts sharply, blinking owlishly at the childlike smiley face etched into the steam on the bathroom mirror. Jared’s awake, or, present, or whatever, and decided to leave Jensen a good morning message.  
  
The fact that whole thing is really fucking weird is not lost on Jensen.  
  
“H-hey Jared,” Jensen stutters, slightly shaky post-shower breakdown. His mouth pops open as he gropes for a question. Now he knows Jared is there and listening, waiting for him to say something. He doesn’t know how this whole thing is supposed to go. He can’t ignore Jared, he can’t just talk to Jared, hold one sided conversations with someone he can’t even see. It’s bad enough that Jared—whoever’s ghost he is—has an all access magnifying glass into Jensen’s every movement.  
  
The best he can do is act the same as he always has, and hope that Jared won’t be expecting much else because Jensen has never been one for meeting expectations.  
  
Jensen dresses quickly, hyper aware of every sound or movement in the room. He’s not about to ask where Jared is standing, or what he is doing; the answer isn’t likely to give him much, seeing as Jared can’t answer in the first place.  
  
“I’m going to school,” Jensen says stoutly, as if it isn’t painfully obvious. “Uh. Don’t touch anything. Or. Don’t move anything.”  
  
He stares at the empty room, at the dust motes trickling through the morning sunlight to the alarm clock next to his bed.  
  
A book flops off the bookshelf near the window. He’ll take that as a yes.  
  
“Right. I’ll uh…see you later.”  
  
Political correctness regarding ghost sensitivities is the last subject Jensen would expect to be dwelling on as he enters the kitchen, but it’s an extensive enough subject that Jensen finds himself getting testy. He doesn’t need to worry about some dead guy’s feelings, especially when Jensen’s never worried about anybody else’s.  
  
“Are you alright?” His Mom asks, reaching around the counter and grabbing Jensen’s chin to force his face up to the light.  
  
“Mom, jeez, I’m fine.” Jensen rolls his eyes but his Mother just continues to peer at his face.  
  
“You’re very pale. Did you sleep?”  
  
“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” Jensen mumbles, and she releases his cheek, looking slightly hurt, recovering quickly.  
  
“I’ve been working late nights. What’s your excuse, punk?”  
  
“Paper. And an exam today.” Jensen goes to the fridge, shoving random food into his bag to make it look like he’s actually putting an effort into functioning correctly. He’ll skip lunch and head over to the library, take off after school.  
  
“Will you be home early tonight? I’ve got a huge meeting and I can’t pick you up tonight, and unless you can get a ride…”  
  
“I’ll take my truck.” Did Jensen say that? Did he actually say those words? And yet he’s reaching for the key ring that is practically collecting dust it’s so untouched on the hook near the doorway and smiling bracingly towards his Mom as if it’s all good, everything is good. When did Jensen become such a practiced liar? When did Jensen give a shit enough to lie? To anyone?  
  
“You sure?” The Concerned Mother look is back. “I hate to ask but…it would help me out a lot. I know you hate that truck.”  
  
“It’s totally fine.” Jensen’s effort to smile is actually straining something in his face. He worries he’ll be stuck this way if he stays for too long.”Really.”  
  
“Jensen…I…I know this move hasn’t been easy. None of this has been easy. Especially being the oldest, and the only man around here. I appreciate you going along with everything and—“  
  
Jensen has to go. He really, really has to go. Because there’s shortness to his breath and hammering of his heart that suggests another panic attack is coming on which is just about the last thing Jensen is equipped to deal with. He can’t let his Mom see him freak out or then he’ll really be in for it, and he’ll never get away from this place. And he needs to get away. He really, really needs to get away.  
  
“Mom. Quit treating me like some damaged traumatized kid, okay? It doesn’t fix anything, it won’t ever fix anything, and thanking me for being well behaved when  _I didn’t even get a choice in the first place_ does absolutely nothing for your parenting credibility, alright? So just drop it.”  
  
“Jensen—”  
  
“Look, I’m using the goddamn truck he gave me and I’m going to goddamn school and doing my goddamn homework and staying out of trouble. What more do you want from me?”  
  
He turns sharply before he can get an answer, bypassing a frightened looking Mackenzie who leaps out of the way when Jensen snarls at her.  
  
He leaves them staring after him in the kitchen. Whatever, he doesn’t have time to deal with hurt feelings or apologies. There’s a ghost in his bedroom and Jensen doesn’t have time for this shit.  
  
His Mom walks into the carport just as he exits it. She looks so small when she stands by herself.  
  
\--  
  
It doesn’t hit Jensen until he’s halfway through the day that he took The Truck.  
  
The pickup-truck Jensen’s Dad gifted to him for his 16th birthday is probably the single most valuable thing Jensen owns, but also the one he uses the least. That makes it sound like Jensen’s a spoiled brat who has been throwing a one year tantrum because he didn’t get a Porsche, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Jensen loves the truck. It’s battered and smells a bit like how classic rock sounds. He loved it from the minute he set eyes on it, and it’s probably the only thing Jensen loves, apart from his iPod playlists.  
  
But it’s the context of the truck, how it came to exist in Jensen’s current life that Jensen abhors.  
  
If the truck had been something that he’d earned, a truck he’d bought after working a summer job, or begged his parents to get for months on end, then he would have no problem. The truck, however, for all its beauty, is merely the simple product of a guilty man willing to put in the money as opposed to the effort to provide emotionally for his estranged son.  
  
Since getting it for his sixteenth birthday, it has done nothing but sit stubbornly in the garage, wherever they’ve lived.  
  
The ring of the afternoon bell and release from school brings a whole new awareness of the truck. He can’t just abandon it in the parking lot. Heat snakes up from the asphalt, swirling in the air like oil on water as Jensen stands ten feet from the vehicle.  
  
Jensen’s too keyed up from the morning’s events for brooding or sentimentality as he gets into the front seat and turns the key into the ignition, feeling the engine come to life under his fingertips. Mom’s hurt face and Jared’s foggy smiley message and Dad’s voice coaching him through how to fix the engine swim through his head, needling at him. Why can’t they all leave him alone? He wants to be left alone. He wants the panic in his chest to settle to a slow crawl instead of a violent gallop. He wants to crash this truck into the nearest boulder or drive it into the swamp, maybe give in to the drowning sensation that haunts his dreams. But then he is well and truly fucked with no way of getting around, so he settles for a glare at the pristine dashboard, the pure whirring of a fully functional engine, and pulls out.  
  
\--  
  
“Do you believe in ghosts?”  
  
It’s a weird question to be asking and Jensen feels like he’s seven years old and being asked if he believes that Bloody Mary haunts the bathroom in his second grade class, shoulders oddly tense as he directs the question at Felicia.  
  
She doesn’t respond at first, merely passing him another stack of books to sort and tuck date slips in. The library is practically empty, and there’s no one to blame for that but the broken AC, leaving the entire atmosphere so thick with humidity there’s a risk of drowning. Felicia leans against the counter, the wiry muscle of her arms coiling as she swipes sweat off her forehead. The bandana tied in her hair makes her look like a propaganda poster from World War Two. Rosie the Riveter. Felicia the Fearless. Makes sense.  
  
“What makes you ask?” She fans her face with a Library Hours pamphlet.  
  
Jensen shrugs, walls coming up just as quickly as they’d come down. It’d been quiet, as it usually is in the library. Most conversations are one sided, Felicia taking the lead and steering straight ahead into monologuing as Jensen politely nods. The change in pace is something they both notice, much to Jensen’s chagrin.  
  
“Dunno. Just thinking about it. You’ve got all these books. You’re kind of…you’re a total geek about it, okay? I just assumed.”  
  
“Didn’t you ever hear what they say about assuming?” Felicia hops up on the counter, and from this height she’s exactly as tall as Jensen, leveling him with one of those calculating stares that make him feel uncomfortably exposed.  
  
Jensen smoothes his thumb over the tape on a date slip, giving up on a concrete answer just as Felicia says, “Yes. I do. Before you ask why, or if I’ve ever seen one, know that I haven’t. I’m a goddamn Catholic and the only Spirit I was raised to believe in was the Holy One. The occult obsession sprouted from too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer when I got to college and not enough pop culture exposure as a child. And training to be a librarian, I’m sure you can guess that finding the books was easy.”  
  
Does that make him crazy, believing in something he can’t physically see? Was he imagining the movement on the Ouija Board, the messages left on his bathroom mirror?  
  
“But why do you believe? Especially with no credible proof or evidence of your own?”  
  
“Date slips,” Felicia scolds, and Jensen busies himself. “I just kind of got to the mindset of…if I can believe in heaven and hell, if I can believe a man walked on water and healed blind men. I’d be an idiot to not believe that some people get stuck here once they die.”  
  
It seems logical, but the straight of it is that Jensen doesn’t believe in things, hasn’t for a long time. He knows the basic facts of a sucky existence and he’s never bothered to hope for more. Call him a pessimist; he’s just more prepared for the fact that most things people ‘believe’ in aren’t real. There’s no telling why he believes in Jared, of all things, why he even wants to. A pesky ghost doesn’t seem like something to make a big deal out of. Jensen grinds his molars together and steers himself back to the topic.  
  
“So you think ghosts are stuck.”  
  
“I don’t think they’d want to stay here by choice, would you?”  
  
Not the worst option in the world, being invisible to everyone, not having anyone talk to you, or ask about you, or wonder if you’re feeling okay. Actually sounds kind of peaceful.  
  
“You’re the occult expert,” is all he says.  
  
“Do you?” She asks.  
  
“Believe?” Jensen rips a piece of scotch tape, toying with it between his index finger and thumb, enjoying the sound of adhesive lifting from his skin. “Never really thought about it before. I just think this occult and demonic shit is cool.”  
  
“Typical teenage boy. Not even surprised,” comes Felicia’s glib response, but she’s still watching Jensen in a way that feels uncomfortable.  
  
It doesn’t matter what Felicia thinks. She might be the only person in Singer who isn’t angry at Jensen, or dead. He’s not about to manipulate that by announcing what he’s been up to.  
  
It’s best to leave it be. That’s Jensen’s new policy on life. Leave things be and let things happen and don’t pick fights with things that can be dealt with just by leaving them alone.  
  
Leave it be.  
  
He plans on doing exactly just that.  
  
\--  
  
Leaving it be turns out to be equal points effective and moot simultaneously. Jensen stands by his new goal, doesn’t once mention Jared to anyone living. There are no more panic attacks, and Jensen enters his room every day with a solid routine of whispering “Hi Jared” to an empty room.  
  
Jared replies every time, almost instantly. It’s kind of like Jensen has a neurotic puppy that he can’t see or hear, the only evidence of its actual existence being the knocked over books or missing socks that happen on occasion.  
  
It’s a pretty strange habit to slip into, saying hello to a ghost. There’s some weird Nuclear Family shit going on, Jensen coming home every day and greeting his spouse, a spouse who’s done nothing but wait for him to come home. He’s so committed to the routine of it all that the impulse to say “Honey I’m home!” is scarily overwhelming. It’s like the opening scene of Leave it to Beaver, or some other 1950’s suburban comedy.  
  
Jared’s nowhere near as accommodating as a black and white TV suburban wife. He’s quite the opposite, actually. Jared’s more of an invisible petulant child who occasionally gets needy and temperamental, Jensen is quick to learn. He frequently wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of his clothes being kicked across the room, or books slapping to the floor after ‘falling’ from the bookshelf.  
  
It seems, additionally, that ignoring Jared’s antics only makes him try harder to be noticed. A lack of response to any shenanigans Jared pulls usually results in Jared taking Jensen’s glasses, or tearing Jensen’s homework neatly in half, mid-air. The demand for attention drives Jensen absolutely crackers at first, and he spends several nights hissing “Jared, quit it!” as his boxers begin to float around the room, even swats at the air a few times. Jared tries ripping his blankets off when Jensen attempts sleeping in on school days. If anything, Jared likes the sound of his own name, or at least, likes it when Jensen is using it with a mildly threatening tone.  
  
On one particular Tuesday, Jensen is practicing an Oral Presentation on World War II for class, and Jared—who had previously been rolling Jensen’s pencils along the floor in circles—stops messing around as long as Jensen is speaking. Jensen stops, mid-sentence, and sure enough, the pencils start rolling and spinning once more. As it turns out, all it really takes to soothe a ghost—this ghost, at least, is talking. Jared doesn’t seem to like silence, ironically the one thing in this world that Jensen can’t get enough of.  
  
So to placate the pesky side of Jared, and save his own peace of mind, Jensen talks.  
  
He’s never been much of a talker. Though he has plenty of intelligent thoughts and opinions, he keeps most of it to himself. But with an expectant Jared, who seemingly spends all day waiting for Jensen to come home and all night waiting for Jensen to wake up, Jensen’s got to change that.  
  
Talking turns out to be a lot harder than Jensen ever thought it could be. The only good thing is that he has absolutely no idea what Jared thinks of his rambling. He doesn’t have to dread a sympathetic or judging expression. Not that Jensen gives a shit either way, but it’s the principle of the thing. Jared, at least, is dead, and really has no grounds to be judging anyone.  
  
Regardless, Jensen begins to talk at a slower-than-molasses-in-January pace. His vocal chords practically ache with the previous lack of use, if that were even possible, but he gives it his best effort, focusing on the moment to moment details. What he had for breakfast. What it tasted like. He spends one lazy afternoon describing the taste of bacon and eggs with a side of hash browns. If Jared is bored by the subject, he gives absolutely no indication. In fact, the only time Jared  _isn’t_  moving things around or knocking quietly is when Jensen is talking.  
  
He narrates everything, from doing math homework to reading aloud. He talks till his voice gets hoarse, and after a few weeks, it’s less of a burden and more of a release, strange as that seems. He doesn’t spill his guts, but, grudging as it is to admit, being able to talk without fear of judgment or causing someone to worry and ask after his well-being; it’s nice, so nice that Jensen keeps talking. Jensen’s more surprised than anything that Jared is willing to listen to him ramble, and is plenty disturbed by the sympathy he feels at the realization that someone could be so lonely that they’d listen to  _him_  talk all day.  
  
As far as responses go, Jared doesn’t offer many. In fact, the unspoken rule with Jared seems to be that actions always speak louder than words.  
  
Jared will express his annoyance with Jensen in whatever ways he can, and refuses to be shamed for it. Jensen tries to switch Jared from listening to his voice to listening to music, tries playing his CD’s on the speaker system, but Jared doesn’t much like those, either. His beloved Evanescence CD goes flying out the open window to land in the yard, along with Nirvana, Linkin Park, and Papa Roach.  
  
Jared can’t really throw Jensen’s iPod out the window, as Jensen immediately threatens to never speak out loud again if Jared does, but his general disgruntlement with Jensen’s music taste is still expressed with a succinct door slam or a wham of Jensen’s pillow across the room. Jared does like classic rock, apparently, and any time American Pie pops up on shuffle the slamming and noises settles down into peaceful silence. But the song feels too personal to share with someone else, especially now that he knows someone is there, so Jensen generally sticks to silence, or settles for having his CDs thrown out the window.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, okay, I get it,” Jensen says, heading out to the lawn to retrieve his CDs. “Jesus Christ, no more music.”  
  
When Jensen’s not talking to Jared, he’s dodging his Mom, who’s been generally distant since the fight in the kitchen, her hurt showing in the decided lack of packed lunches and offers of rides to school. Jensen considers apologizing, but it seems a sensitive subject that he wouldn’t want to expose anyone to. Least of all Jared, who doesn’t need further access to the more vulnerable points of Jensen’s life; he already has plenty.  
  
The composition notebook Jensen keeps in the very bottom of his backpack goes undiscovered by Jared as far as he knows, and gradually fills with notes. He’s started to realize that Jared’s long periods of absence happen most often after Jared moves things. It seems to tire him, if ghosts getting tired is actually a possible circumstance. Usually small things, nudging Jensen’s clothes across the floor, don’t affect him. But chucking things, Jensen’s CDs, for example, seem to exhaust him. The day Jared heaves Jensen’s entire stack of metal mixes out the window he goes MIA for almost six hours, the echoing silence left behind almost eerie.  
  
Not that Jensen misses Jared when he’s gone. It’s just that he’s gotten so used to the constant movement that the absence is impossible to ignore.  
  
Jensen refrains from mentioning any of this to Felicia, though she certainly does attempt to pry, asking questions about what Jensen does for fun, why his sudden interest in the occult. But Jensen keeps mum and Felicia doesn’t push. He spends afternoons in the libraries doing what research he can, and he comes home to tell Jared things. And that’s Jensen’s life.  
  
Things are okay.  
  
Until they’re a complete and fucking utter disaster.  
  
\--  
  
Gym class is a bitch.  
  
Jensen’s perfectly in shape, but Coach Manners is a Nazi sent from the pits of hell, and Jensen’s half convinced he gets off on the sweat and pain of teenage boys, the perv. Though Jensen has little to no aspirations to be on an athletic team, Coach sure treats him and the rest of the class as if they’re on one, spending the duration of Friday gym class drilling everyone in burning calisthenics: suicides, bleachers, burpees, the works, until they’re practically in tears, drowning in sweat and humidity.  
  
All torture methods in the thick afternoon heat are tied off with a mile sprint around the track, and Jensen makes it to the end with his lungs absolutely stinging. There might be blood pouring somewhere from his quadriceps, they hurt so much. He’s got a stitch in his side and sweat dripping into his eyes.  
  
Coach Manners dismisses the class with a terse, “Look lively boys, and welcome to real life. If you don’t kick it in the ass, it’ll smack you right down onto yours.”  
  
The class groans in response, and Jensen thinks he might actually be dying. He skips showering in the locker room and begs sick out of his shift at the library, gunning home in the truck with no intent but to wash up and take a thousand year nap in hopes that it’ll help the persistent ache that seems to have appeared in every muscle group in his entire body.  
  
“You look disgusting.” Mackenzie’s nose crinkles as she eyes him shiftily from the couch. Disney Channel is blaring from the TV. “And you smell like crap.”  
  
“Thanks, jerk. If you need me, I’m in the shower, drowning myself.”  
  
“Whatever. I get your iPod when you die.”  
  
The trek of climbing up the stairs nearly has Jensen whimpering in protest, and reaching the hallway feels like walking through a never ending tunnel towards the light.  
  
He bursts through his bedroom door, stripping his clothes off like they’re dead skin, the damp sweaty material sticking to him. The muscles in his legs are trembling, and the possibility of remaining upright in the shower is seeming less and less likely.  
  
Thank god for the bathtub that he thought he’d never ever use.  
  
Jensen turns both handles on full throttle, watching as hot water gushes out to fill the porcelain basin of the tub. He tosses a bar of soap in, figures that’ll be enough to get the grime off. Not that the purpose of this is washing. Jensen’s going to sit. Sit and sit and sit and maybe nap until the pain has unknotted from his muscles and the fatigue has shifted from his body to his brain.  
  
Getting into the tub feels like heaven. Agonizing bliss and heaven wrapped into one as steaming water shrouds everything in Jensen that is hurting. He doesn’t waste time easing in, simply submerges his body in the tub until he’s in up to his neck. Settling his arms on either side of the tub and leaning back, he closes his eyes, breathes in steam and soap and the peace of an uninterrupted afternoon.  
  
The split second where Jensen first feels the bathwater turn frigid happens too quickly for him to actually register. The following split second has him bolting upright, sitting upwards and shouting, swallowing a mouthful of freezing sudsy water as goose bumps erupt all over his body. There’s another brief fraction of a second where he thinks he accidentally fell asleep in the tub and his having some very bizarre nightmarish dream.  
  
But then chaos erupts.  
  
The tub unplugs and drains itself faster than quicksand, Jensen leaping out shivering and cursing just as every single door in the house begins slamming, violent bangs that make the hinges rattle and echo throughout the house. Jensen yanks his boxers on, heart pounding as he scrambles across the wet bathroom tile into his bedroom.  
  
“Jared, what the  _fuck_?!” Jensen shouts. “Hey! Quit it, goddammit!”  
  
If Jared hears, he gives no acknowledgement. Jensen looks out into the hallway to see every single door opening and slamming closed on repeat. He begins to stalk out of his bedroom just as he’s attacked by three textbooks flying about pell-mell.  
  
Jensen needs a plan. Stat. He frets for a moment, trying to rub warmth back into his now wet and cold limbs. He throws on a t-shirt and jeans that stick to his damp skin in an attempt to warm up. There has to be a way to deal with this so no one else in the house notices. Mackenzie’s the only one home and—  
  
“Jensen!” A scream sounds from downstairs. “Jensen help!”  
  
A sickeningly loud crash cuts off the scream.  
  
“Mac!” Jensen rockets out the doorway and slips his way down the stairs, batting away flying books and pens and papers flitting out of each and every room. This feels like every magical scene in the Harry Potter movies that Jensen had ever wanted to experience as a child, only it’s incredibly horrifying because Jensen’s not the one waving his wand and controlling all of it.  
  
Mackenzie’s body lies sprawled on the floor, the wooden ceiling fan lying in pieces around her. A gash high on her forehead is streaked with blood and Jensen barely breathes as he collapses in her direction, groping blindly for a pulse. It’s there, steady, and her chest rises and falls. He nearly trips over himself in relief on his way to grab his cellphone.  
  
“911, what’s your emergency?” asks the Operator.  
  
“It’s my sister. She was hurt by….a ceiling fan fell on her head. No, she’s breathing.” Jensen can’t stop shaking, kneeling over Mackenzie, cradling her in his arms. He keeps thumbing at the gash in her head helplessly, feeling like a fucking idiot for not knowing what to do.  
  
“335 Cold Oak…look, I’ll just meet you at the hospital, she’s bleeding badly.” Jensen has to get Mackenzie out of here, there’s no telling when Jared will be back for round two. He hangs up and looks around. The house is silent, objects strewn about like a mini twister came ripping through. The doors have stopped slamming; the only sound left the acute huff of Mackenzie’s breaths and the ticking of the Grandfather clock in the foyer.  
  
God. Jensen had had one condition,  _one fucking condition_  for that fucking ghost, and that was to not cause trouble. One dip in the bathtub and suddenly that was call for an all out war on the house inhabitants? Jensen didn’t care if shit got chucked at him, but pulling his little sister into this, hurting her, brought out a fierce streak of protectiveness that Jensen hadn’t been aware existed. He wants to burn this house down, toss some gasoline and a lighter to the wooden bones of it and walk away with that stupid ghost burning with it.  
  
He should have said no, should have figured out how to get rid of it. Hadn’t he learned by now? Where had trusting people, expecting the best from people, ever gotten Jensen?  
  
It had gotten him nothing but disappointment. It figures that this time isn’t any different.  
  
He doesn’t wait to see if the coast is clear. He picks up Mackenzie and exits the house without a single glance back. The only hesitation is in the doorway, where he whispers. “You’re done, Jared. You’re done and you’re gonna be gone within the week. So pack your bags, you dick.”  
  
There is no response.


	5. Chapter 5

 

Jensen’s Mother is just clocking out for the day when Jensen calls her, and she nearly mows down Jensen when he comes into the Singer hospital lobby. The nurses on call take Mackenzie off for an x-ray, but Donna won’t sit until she’s reassured twenty times over that Mackenzie is at least in stable condition. Jensen watches, miserably, as she whispers with the other nurses and tries to beg as much information from her coworkers as she can.  
  
She walks over after some time, hands still shaking, and then says, “Mac’s going to be okay. She’s getting stitches. But she’s alright.”  
  
Jensen breathes out a sigh of relief, and his Mom watches him for a long beat before asking, less anxious and more tight-lipped, “What happened?”  
  
“Ceiling fan. It came unscrewed and fell on her.” He’d planned out the lie the second he’d had idle time in the waiting room.  
  
“And where were you when this happened?” His Mother’s shaking visibly now, adrenaline run out and weariness taking over.  
  
“Upstairs. Just heard the crash. It knocked her out.” This is the only part he wishes wasn’t a lie. He might have been able to prevent this if he’d been closer, not half naked and clambering out of icy bathwater.  
  
“I’ll have to talk to Danneel about this. We have to have the house checked out, see if anything else is old and loose in the house. This cannot happen again. She—she could have been killed.”  
  
“I know,” he says dumbly, feeling, an hour after the fact, as if he’s still drenched in cold water, guilt settling into the meat of him.  
  
They sit in the waiting room, proximal but not touching, for forty minutes. Mom doesn’t say a word. Jensen frets and lets guilt gnaw at his insides like a teething baby. This accident is entirely his fault. His one job, if anything, is to protect his little sister, and he can’t even do that. Not that Mackenzie ever needed or wanted anything from him, yet a simple task such as keeping an eye on her while Mom’s not home should not have been such a complete fuckup.  
  
What had he been thinking? Surely there was some great malfunction with his brain that he thought letting a ghost, a dead guy whom he had no actual clue about, stay in his house. Taking Jared’s word as gospel has been a stupid,  _stupid_  judgment call on his part. And of course Jensen doesn’t pay the price for it. His sister does.  
  
Sometimes it’s easy for Jensen to forget how much he hates himself. There’s a specifically carved out groove in his heart where he usually keeps it tucked away, but like a fly trap, it’s easy to get stuck in it. Self-hatred goes hand in hand with so many other things marked with red Do Not Discuss tape. Things like Dad and Josh and the countless times he’s walked in on Mom crying, the countless times he just as easily walked out without an effort to say something. It’s easy to forget and it’s easy to push away, but in the moments where he’s left with nothing but all the ways in which he’s failed, Jensen lets that hatred crawl out of its box and tinge his lungs with venom until he’s nearly suffocated by it. Tar on his skin, that he’ll never tear off but instead will let harden. Bitter tar that will layer and crack and make him tougher, more durable, more ready to take on the world.  
  
Who cares about the underside when you’ve got a sturdy shell?  
  
Mackenzie is eventually released from the hospital with a minor concussion and three stitches. Donna puts her in the car, Jensen fidgeting behind her, asking Mac if she’s okay, how she’s feeling, does it hurt.  
  
“They gave me medicine, moron.” Mackenzie’s retort is halfhearted, eyes bleary with painkillers. “I’m fine.”  
  
“Do you remember anything, sweet pea? Did you see the fan falling?” Donna adjusts Mac’s seatbelt, fretting, like Mackenzie isn’t perfectly capable of doing it herself.  
  
“N-no. I.” Mackenzie’s face flushes. “I was yelling for Jensen. I was scared.”  
  
“Scared? Why were you scared?”  
  
“I.” There’s a moment as Mackenzie struggles, most likely trying to reconcile the explanation for flying books and doors slamming of their own volition. But then she shakes her head, and Jensen feels something loosen in his chest. “I don’t really remember, it happened really fast. I think I was watching a scary movie in the living room. The monster came out and I yelled for Jensen. I think that’s when the fan fell. I don’t remember anything else except waking up when Jensen was carrying me to the car.”  
  
Mom nods and pets Mac’s cheek gently, and Jensen feels even guiltier at how scared Mac must have been, and all because of him.  
  
“I’ll meet you at home?” Mom walks around the front of the car after closing the door.  
  
“I-uh…I think I’m going to go to the library,” Jensen says.  
  
“And work? Now?” Donna blinks, looking almost hurt. “Your sister was just in the hospital. It’s late.”  
  
“They’re short staffed.”  
  
“And if I say no? If I assert my Parental Authority?”  
  
Jensen really should keep his mouth shut, but he’s already disappointed his Mother so much today, what’s one more dash of fuel to the fire? “It’s not like you’re home enough to claim that authority. I’m the one who got Mac to the hospital.”  
  
“I was working,” Donna says softly.  
  
“And now it’s my turn to do the working,” Jensen says. “My baby sitting shift is over, thanks.” ”  
  
For a moment his Mom looks like she’s going to fight him, but the earlier fire seems to have drained from her. She jerks her head in what Jensen guesses is supposed to be a nod and says, “Fine,” before opening the driver’s side door.  
  
He’s hurt her feelings, can tell by the slope of her shoulders and the way she re-ties her hair up into her scrunchie, face pinched, before starting the car.  
  
“Mom?”  
  
“What, Jensen?”  
  
There’s a tone his Mother so rarely uses with him, so subtle it’s usually hidden behind Chiding or Sarcastic. He hears it crystal clear, now, however. The exhausted Finality of her tone washes over Jensen, fresh hot tar, another coating to his casing. She’s tired, that is true, but more of him, his attitude, than anything else.  
  
He wishes he could call her out for being unfair, but he can’t. Because it is his fault, from Mac’s stitches to the frown lines on his Mother’s face, of this he is more than aware.  
  
“Stay in a hotel for the night. Just in case there’s…anything else in the house that could fall out, okay? Just until Danneel gets the place checked out. It’s safer.”  
  
Mom sighs deeply, and nods. “Will do. Have a good night, kiddo. You be safe, too.”  
  
\--  
  
Felicia’s working graveyard shift, and as he shoulders through the doors it occurs to Jensen that she might not actually ever leave this place. She’s got a large cup clutched in her hands and is blinking owlishly at him through the lenses of her glasses, alarmed. Which might be due to the fact Jensen looks a little scary; t-shirt smeared on one short sleeve with Mac’s blood. He can’t remember the last time he ate something.  
  
“Jensen? It’s almost nine o clock. What the hell are you doing here? I gave you the day off, didn’t I? What happened to your stomach flu? I mean, I get it, you love working here. But seriously, have you never heard of sleep?”  
  
“I need your help.”  
  
He sees Felicia connect the dots, from the frazzled expression to the blood on his sleeve to the way Jensen is speaking louder than he ever has before, his voice loud enough to easily be heard throughout the library.  
  
“What’s wrong are…are you hurt?” Felicia flits over, grabbing Jensen’s sleeve and slipping her hand to his forehead like she’s a trained nurse and not a librarian.  
  
“It’s not--” Jensen shakes Felicia from him and steps back, too keyed up to allow anyone near him.  
  
It’s not panic pushing his adrenaline levels, but anger, cold hard determined anger to get Jared out of his life, for good. The drive away from his Mother and her sadness had given him time to get well and truly revved up again. He’s ready to kick some ass.  
  
He breathes, chest heaving, for a solid few seconds, ignoring Felicia’s nervous glances. He steadies himself, and then says, “I have a problem.”  
  
“Like, an I-filed-my-taxes-incorrectly problem or an I-just-killed-a-man problem? You’re really starting to scare me.”  
  
“More like a there’s-a-dickbag-ghost-in-my-house-that-hurt-my-sister-and-I-have-no-idea-how-to-get-rid-of-it problem,” Jensen says flatly.  
  
If he’s expecting some sort of ‘Angry boy says WHAT?’ response, he doesn’t get it. Felicia hardly bats an eyelash.  
  
“How long?”  
  
“I—what?”  
  
“How long have you been aware of the ghost? How long has it been haunting you?”  
  
“Since I moved in back in September. But….wait, why aren’t you freaking out about this?”  
  
“The important question is, why aren’t  _you_?” Felicia is groping blindly underneath the counter and pulling out a long lanyard of keys. “Hate to break it to your ego Jensen, but this is by far not the most out there thing I’ve ever heard. You’re gonna have to try a lot harder to impress a girl, you know.”  
  
Felicia goes first to the front door, then the side doors, then the bathroom doors and special collections, locking each cabinet calmly, turning each block of lights off as she goes. Jensen follows, watching her, knowing that pressing Felicia for more information will do nothing to actually get him answers. She seems to enjoy keeping him on his toes.  
  
“I know someone that can help you,” she explains as they move from door to door. “Or, someone who can help me, help you. But they don’t do favors unless they like you, so you’re going to have to come and meet them. This is me going out on a limb for you, Jensen. So lock down the blunt attitude and forget for a second that you’re trying to be the least pleasant human being on the planet, and do what I say, okay?”  
  
She’s made her way back around the front by this point, holding the door open to Jensen as he stands in a now pitch black library.  
  
“But…don’t you have to stay open?”  
  
“The library is closed when I say it’s closed,” Felicia says firmly, swinging a much-too-large Jack Skellington hoodie over her head. “Now follow me in your truck.”  
  
She’s out the door before he can ask exactly where they’re going.  
  
\--  
  
New Orleans turns out to be the answer.  
  
Despite the short distance from Singer, Jensen’s actually never been, and even in the dark he’s aware of the highway surrounded by water, dead trees still standing tall in the swamp. The swamp becomes industrial city, power plants and factories and corrugated metal, which then turns into small and styled houses with curving floral iron fences. The buildings are tall and clustered together, and amidst the street lights Jensen can make out tiny staircases and alleyways between them, stringing each building to the next like Mardi Gras beads.  
  
Felicia drives him through a back road that takes them to the French quarter, cramped streets at a slow crawl pace. Passing Bourbon street takes nearly fifteen minutes on its own, traffic slowed, and Jensen is greeted with a wall of sound, people screaming and whooping, music pumping from the multiple bars and clubs as they clutch drinks and wander around from bar to bar. The air smells thicker down here, sour with vomit, and Jensen even witnesses a woman squat to urinate on the street just as they switch from Bourbon Street to Royal. New Orleans, for all its modernity on the outside, makes no efforts to hide its age on the inside, water damage and flaking paint marking each building, vines creeping over walls like parasites. Jensen’s just about to take out his phone and call Felicia to ask where exactly they’re going when her car suddenly swerves into a tiny back parking lot and turns off her engine, crawling out of her car.  
  
The apartment complex they’ve arrived at is small, cramped, all too familiar-looking to Jensen. Their last place in Los Angeles had been like this; constricted and seedy looking. It’s not ugly, but there’s a bend and shape to the building that suggests more wear and tear than many of the places around here.  
  
Felicia raps on his window and he gets out.  
  
A line of shops rings the base of the apartment complex, just as tightly confined as the rest of the building. Felicia makes a beeline for a darkened window that reads ‘Mama DeVine’s Voodoo’ in bright red script. She pulls another key from her lanyard, flashing him a grin as she unlocks the door quietly and lets him in.  
  
“Don’t touch anything. And be quiet.”  
  
With no light to see save for the street lamps from outside, Jensen can just barely make out shelves and shelves heaped with things. He can make out pin cushions shaped like people, graphic looking illustrations, elaborately colored ‘spell’ books, most of which he recognizes. But there are other things--small drawstring pouches, coins engraved with languages and symbols he’s never seen, small statues of deities, entire baskets of colored chicken feet, alabaster animal bones, dried and gnarled roots--that Jensen has certainly never seen for sale.  
  
There’s an altar just off to the left, with a small sign that says “Leave an offering, but do not take”, covered in melted candle wax and small tchochkes, that people have left behind, coins and stale food, lottery tickets, vials of liquid that Jensen has no idea what they are. Tribal masks line the walls, enough that they make up their own patterned wall paper, carved and colorful and staring ahead with blank eyes. It’s equal parts fascinating and unsettling, especially at this hour of night, with no way of being sure that those masks aren’t watching him, or that those animal bones aren’t real. He ducks through the various dolls hanging from the ceiling with fishing line, and becomes aware of the stifled air of the shop, silent and eerie in its closed hours.  
  
Felicia tugs on his sleeve, ‘C’mon’.  
  
She leads him up a small staircase behind the counter and up to a door on the second level.  
  
“Be nice,” she commands, before pushing the door open to the apartment.  
  
After seeing the densely decorated shop down below Jensen had been expecting something more….elaborate. The room is simple in its assembly in comparison to downstairs. There’s a scratchy record player singing out a sweet jazz tune in the corner of the dimly lit room. The air smells like spice, fresh cinnamon that could never be replicated by an air freshener. He takes in the basic mundane furniture, all vintage, but relatively ordinary. Dining room table and patterned rugs and picture frames. There’s a photo of a man and a woman on the wall, him white, very tall with dark eyes, arms wrapped around a round-faced dark skinned woman. They’re both smiling at the camera.  
  
“’Licia, is that you?” A woman rounds the corner from the kitchen, not as dark as the woman in the photograph, but just as young, if not younger. Her body moves like liquid as she enters, smell of cinnamon wafting in with her. She stops, almond shaped eyes staring at Jensen as the jazz record comes to a finish.  
  
Felicia titters nervously between the woman and Jensen, although Jensen is the one who feels properly cowed. If he’d thought Felicia had an intense gaze, it’s nothing compared to what this woman is turning on him right now, soul searching dark eyes probing. She stares at Jensen just a bit longer than is necessary, and he gets the invasive sense that he’s being evaluated, and breaks her gaze.  
  
“Hi,” Jensen says shyly.  
  
“Jensen,” Felicia takes his breach of silence as cue to push forward. “This is my girlfriend, Megalyn. PhD in Parapsychology, co-owner of the shop we just walked through and Resident Voodoo Expert. Megalyn, this is Jensen. PhD in Stony Silence, employee of the library, and Resident Moody Teen.”  
  
“You’ll have to forgive ‘Licia. She tends to lean toward the dramatic. You can call me Meggie.” The sound of her voice is smooth honey where Felicia is all sweet crackling pop rocks. Meggie doesn’t offer a hand towards Jensen, but her smile is warm enough when she steps forward, that zing of cinnamon relaxing Jensen immediately.  
  
Regardless of her soothing presence, she’s staring him down again.  
  
“You know I don’t do favors, Licia. I’m not helping this kid contact his dead girlfriend, or his dog.”  
  
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, Megs,” Felicia responds, conversing as if Jensen isn’t even in the room. “He’s being haunted.”  
  
“Haunted?”  
  
“His little sister got hurt tonight. He said the ghost has never done that before.”  
  
“The ghost can move things?”  
  
This question is directed at Jensen, he realizes after about a solid five seconds of blank staring. He nods jerkily, and Meggie whips around and heads for a bookshelf reaching from floor to ceiling. Murmuring to herself, she brushes fingertips along spines until she pulls out one volume in particular, a composition notebook, of all things.  
  
“Do you know Its name?”  
  
Jensen nods, and she wets her thumb before flicking through a few pages, black curls obscuring the view of her face as she bends over and squints at the print. A moment later, she straightens.  
  
“I can help you, Jensen. It won’t be easy, but I can help you.”  
  
“That’s my girl!” Felicia cheers, bounding forward to smack a kiss to Meggie’s cheek.  
  
Meggie rolls her eyes and walks back to the kitchen, gesturing with a flick of her wrist for them to follow. She opens the cupboards, pulling out various spices and jars with murky substances in them, one an alarming shade of dark red. It’s a bit bizarre.  
  
“So, Felicia mentions you’re some kind of Voodoo Expert,” Jensen quips, grinning at the two of them. “That’s quite the title you’ve got there.”  
  
“She’d like to think so.” Meggie raises an eyebrow towards Felicia, who flushes, looking sheepish as she busies herself with dishes sitting in the sink. “I’m no one special. And I’m no expert on actual voodoo. I dabble here and there, I run my mother’s shop when her cataracts act up, and that’s all.”  
  
“But you can teach me voodoo to get rid of the ghost, right?”  
  
There’s a sudden stillness to Meggie’s liquid movement that makes Jensen realize he’s said the wrong thing. When she rounds on him, it’s to level him with the most serious of stares, voice cracking like a cobra strike.  
  
“What do you think I am, some kind of witch doctor? That I’m supposed to give you some kind of magical dust that you sprinkle on the doorframe with the magic words ‘ting tang walla walla bing bang’ and the ghostie goes away?” Meggie turns to Felicia, “You brought an idiot into my house. A racist idiot.”  
  
“I brought a kid. He needs our help.”  
  
“He  _needs_  an education.”  
  
“So explain to him what exactly it is you do.” Felicia reaches over with a dishwater wet hand, lightly squeezing Meggie’s wrist. The look that passes between them makes Jensen feel exposed enough that he looks away. When he dares glance back, Megalyn is standing right in front of him, a small bag clutched in her hand.  
  
Meggie may be significantly smaller than Jensen, but like Felicia she’s got an awful knack for making Jensen feel like he’s miles beneath her in height.  
  
“Let me make this crystal clear. This?” She shakes the bag, its contents rattling inside. “What we’re doing? This isn’t voodoo. In fact this is every kind of fodder that those cracks in Hollywood think Voodoo is, but it’s not. Voodoo is about luck, influencing fortune, and tempting fate. Voodoo is culture, a belief, not a dumb party trick.”  
  
Jensen ducks his head, apologetic.  
  
“What we do here in the shop…I call it means of rent.” Meggie shrugs, heading back over to the cupboards, hands whirring as she pulls out ingredients. “I call it ‘Tourists will pay twenty dollars for a chicken bone if Mama tells them it’s magic’. It’s humiliating to us, but it helps us get by.”  
  
Jensen nods in understanding. It’s not the kind of thing that needs a response, so he instead asks, “Well, if this—whatever we’re doing--isn’t really voodoo, what is it?”  
  
A flare of light in the dimmed kitchen as Meggie strikes a match and holds it to the wick of a thick black candle. It catches, the cinnamon scent rejuvenating with the light. She regards the flame, and then turns back to him.  
  
“This is what I like to call Fusion, because it’s exactly that. It’s black magic with a spritz of voodoo and a slice of occult. And it’s the closest thing I’ve experienced to the real deal, or, magic that actually  _works_.”  
  
“It’s a combination of the most effective elements of all the various types of spells and potions and magics. Save for the notes ‘Licia and I have taken, there’s no actual written record of the stuff. Even then, it doesn’t always work.”  
“Now. I’m not your maid, and I’m not your witch doctor. If you want to get rid of this ghost, I’m not going to hold your hand in this process and tell you it’s going to be alright, because if you mess this up you could easily kill yourself and end up a ghost yourself. Are we clear?”  
  
It’s all becoming a bit too much for Jensen. He doesn’t want to  _die_ , he just wants to get rid of the ghost haunting his bedroom. Apparently that’s too much to ask of the universe today. “Look Meggie, I appreciate your help, but I don’t want to intrude or make you uncomfortable. So if it’s that big of a deal I’ll just go.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Meggie snatches his hand as he heads for the door. “Do you want to get rid of the ghost or not?”  
  
Jensen nods. Felicia smiles. Meggie grins.  
  
“Good,” she says, leafing open to a page in the book. “Now tell me, how good’s your French and Latin?”  
  
\--  
  
He waits till the full moon, just as Meggie had instructed.  
  
Danneel Harris of the Harris Family Estate comps the family’s hotel room and has the house inspected twice for potential damages or wood wear. Nothing crops up, and much to Jensen’s dread they’re back in the house by the weekend. Donna doesn’t ask where Jensen’s been and he doesn’t volunteer to tell her. He sneaks the large bag of supplies inside in his backpack, hides them in one of the empty bedrooms in the house.  
  
The past two days have given Jensen a lot of time to think about things. And the bottom line is he’s not scared. Whatever happens tonight, he’ll deal with it and he’ll make it work and he’ll get rid of Jared by the next morning. He doesn’t have time for this bullshit.  
  
He enters his bedroom and crosses the threshold without batting an eyelash. “I know you’re there,” he says into the empty space. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten my promise. Enjoy your last day here, Jared. Because it  _will_  be your last.”  
  
When Danneel comes by and offers to have the family over for dinner, her treat, Jensen quickly opts out, and his mother doesn’t even try to push him, seems almost relieved to get him away from her. She’s been quiet the last few days, not as angry towards Jensen as she’d been, but more sad.  
  
“We’ll be back by ten or so, after we have dessert. Danneel’s making pie,” is all he gets as a goodbye when she leaves.  
  
A deadline is all he needed anyways, and the second the door is closed, Jensen gets to work.  
  
Five bags of gris gris, three black candles and one burning sage brush. Rosemary. Thyme. Chicken beaks. Snake rattlers. Eagle feathers. He sets it up like pieces on a game board on his bed, before hopping off to draw a singular chalk line along the perimeter of his bed, making a perfect circle.  
  
 _You want a perfectly round circle_. Meggie had instructed, guiding his hand as he’d traced a faux line around her dining room table.  _Give it an inch, that spirit will take it_.  
  
The circle is for protection. Jensen’s kind of holding hope that he won’t need it as anything other than a precaution.  
  
He’s not exactly sure how to go about slicing his skin open when it comes to that part. Hate himself though he does, Jensen’s never been one for the blade and self-harm. He’s trying to trick himself into getting it over with at the exact same moment he decides to go for it.  
  
And fuck, it hurts. No wonder this kind of recipe isn’t common knowledge of the general public. Because the general public doesn’t want to be in this kind of pain, Jesus.  
  
His hand bleeds fast, red blood looking an eerie black in the candlelight as he squeezes his fist, droplets circling within the small bowl of ground materials. He ends the spiral in the center of the bowl, listening to each drop fall with a soft  _plop_  into the bowl.  
  
“This better work,” he whispers, throws a match onto the mix. The ensemble goes up in a cloud of red smoke, hissing and spitting sparks onto his sheets that sputter and go out. Jensen inhales the smell of smoke, breathes for a moment.  
  
He recites the words Megalyn taught him, careful not to stumble on the pronunciation, and waits.  
  
And just when it seems like the room has settled, books start flying off the shelves, knocking about and smacking Jensen in the head.  
  
“Hey! Knock that shit off!” Jensen shouts, but to no avail. His books go cart wheeling and his CDs go soaring out the window one by one like frisbees. It’s not the same scale of panic Jared had had when Jensen had taken a bath, but nearly there.  
  
He yanks his phone from his pocket and dials quickly. “Meggie!” He roars into the mouthpiece. “It’s not working! Jared’s just getting pissed!”  
  
“What do you mean the exorcism didn’t work?” Meggie snaps. “You cut your hand the way I showed you, right, drew the circle?”  
  
“It didn’t work, I’m telling you!”  
  
“Then we’ll have to improvise.” Meggie curses, and he hears clanging, rustling of book pages. “We’re going to do a spell that allows you to communicate with Jared face to face. It’s the only way to figure out exactly why he’s refusing to leave. Listen very carefully, Jensen. Do you still have that Ouija board you used to communicate with Jared the first time?”  
  
“Yeah.” He fishes it out from under the bed. “What of it?”  
  
“Get the Ouija board. Pour lavender oil on it. And the ashes from the bowl. Light it.”  
  
Jensen does so. A larger burst of smoke this time, putrid yellow and billowing; the air smells of sage and rosemary, charring. Jensen coughs. “Okay, got it.”  
  
“Now, cut your hand again.”  
  
It burns, but he does it, tricking his own blood over the simmering flames of the Ouija board, listening to it sizzle as it falls downward.  
  
“Okay, now don’t freak out. But I’m going to need you to touch the board, Jensen, pick it up.”  
  
“And what, spontaneously combust?”  
  
“Jensen! There are greater forces at work in this moment than you and your sarcasm. Pick up the damn board and recite the words ‘Voir et entendre au-delà du voile’!”  
  
The CDs are really chucking themselves now. It looks like Jared’s trying to find any and all ways of distracting Jensen from continuing, which must mean he’s doing something right.  
  
Which pretty much justifies why he reaches forward and picks up the Ouija board, just like that. The fire feels like barely warm brushes of air against his skin, licking along his wrists in timid tendrils that engulf the Ouija board.  
  
“Voir et entendre au-delà du voile,” Jensen whispers, watching his blood dissolve into flame.  
  
Ice races up his veins like he’d just shot it up with a syringe. Jensen reels back on the bed, jaw locking tight on a soundless cry for help as panic grips him and he must have done it wrong he must have done something  _wrong_. He scrabbles for his glasses, his bed sheets, the phone, anything, but he feels frozen solid, muscles crystallizing with permafrost. It’s like he’s seizing, body shivering in violent twitches in an effort to keep itself warm. He can’t see whether the fire went out or his entire room caught flame. He doesn’t really care, he’s so cold he doesn’t think he’ll ever be warm again, drowning in an eternal ice shower that drips and grips each vertebra in his spine until the cold is the only thing that’s holding him together.  
  
His last and only thought is that he’s going to be so fucking pissed if the spell killed him and not the goddamn ghost.  
  
\--  
  
Everything is hazy when Jensen comes to, and it is a miserable coming to indeed. Everything hurts; every muscle in his body feeling tense and strung out. The room feels as if the thermostat has gone down fifty degrees or so, despite a promising heat wave amidst cloudy skies outside. Jensen's surprised his breath isn't fogging in front of his face, that's how cold the room feels, how cold  _he_  feels.  
  
He rolls over onto his side, regretting that choice immediately as his body creaks in protest, muscles cramping in violent shivers and head pounding as if he'd spent the night downing whiskey and not performing Fusion magic. It feels worse than any collective flu that Jensen has ever had, and all he can think is that he's going to kill Felicia and Meggie for telling him to cast such a spell, one that so obviously didn't work.  
  
He doesn't hear anything, save for the sound of Mac singing to her Barbie Dolls and stuffed animals down the hall. They must have come back and assumed he was asleep. Thank god he’d remembered to lock the door. With what little energy he has he strains to hear, but there's no other noise. The ghost certainly isn't talking at all.  
  
He's going to kill Felicia. Of all the stupid tricks to fall for, why had he believed that a ghost exorcism could actually be performed? Is he insane?  
  
Jensen scrapes himself off of the bed like a scab, every inch of his body aching in protest. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and cradles his head gently in his hands, massaging his temples and wondering if he cut his hand too deep and lost too much blood and is going to die of anemia before he even gets down to breakfast.  
  
He was stupid enough to try it, so maybe he deserves to die in that sense.  
  
He definitely is insane, if that counts for anything.  
  
The hairs on the back of Jensen’s neck stand, and he freezes.  
  
A small cough sounds to Jensen's left and he jumps out of his skin, whipping around so fast his neck cricks.  
  
There’s a boy sitting on Jensen's bed.  
  
Or, something that looks like a boy. Jensen would have no problem calling him a regular guy if he weren't completely transparent, a weird gray tint to every inch of him, from the nondescript t-shirt he wears to the skin of his face as he looks at Jensen with wide shining eyes. Jensen can make out the dresser, the outlines of his bookshelf, not around the boy, but behind him,  _through_  him.  
  
Jensen opens up his mouth but no coherent sound comes out, just a bunch of beginnings of 'uhs' and 'ums' that he doesn't think will ever shape into actual sentences. This is way above his pay grade.  
  
It takes a few seconds of staring at each other before the blank shock of Jensen's mind finally wraps around a coherent question.  
  
"Jared?" He rasps, not exactly sure whether he wants to know the answer to that question.  
  
The boy perks up, gives a small smile that makes Jensen involuntarily flinch. His legs are long and looking cramped as he stares at Jensen, hardly moving but for the twitching of his fingers as he stares.  
  
And then just as Jensen thinks he’s recovered control of whatever bile is forcing its way up from his stomach, the boy is leaning forward, bracing himself on his knuckles. Jensen is helpless but to watch, petrified, as his personal space is invaded. The boy stops inches from his face, and Jensen is forced to confront something that’s making him want to do nothing but wet himself.  
  
They stare at each other for a long, unblinking moment. The ghost opens his mouth around a smile.  
  
“Boo.”  
  
Jensen screams.


	6. Chapter 6

 

Jared hates waking up in the bathtub.  
  
It’s easily the worst part of this whole ‘being dead’ thing. There is nothing remotely glamorous about waking up in a bathtub, nothing that suggests that he parties hard or lives life (ha) to the fullest. His bathtub is hard (or so he imagines) and cold (or so he thinks he remembers it being) and being dead you’d think he’d have more of a say in where he gets to hang out (spoiler: he doesn’t).  
  
The long and short of it is that Jared has a routine and up until about five minutes ago that so called routine had been the undeniable and mundanely oppressive fact of his existence.  
  
He wakes up in the bathtub, walks around invisible until he gets tired, vanishes, and does it all over again.  
  
That’s it. That’s what he does.  
  
Until now.  
  
“Uh. Jensen?”  
  
There’s a stifled choked off cough that comes from the steam filled bathroom, where Jared’s not entirely positive that Jensen isn’t trying to drown himself in the shower. While walking through the bathroom door is an option--he’s seen enough living naked bodies in this house for the novelty of nudity to have worn off--he kind of feels that he should give Jensen his space.  
  
It’s a lot to take in, Jared knows that. Waking up being able to see and hear the dead kid you were trying to get rid of; Jared doesn’t even blame Jensen for his reaction.  
  
Granted, Jared’s whole ‘make a joke to ease the situation’ had gone off rather disastrously when, instead of laughing at his joke-slash-greeting, Jensen had yelled and gone into an almost comical state of hysteria, leaping off the bed and running straight for the shower.  
  
In all the various times he’d fantasized about meeting Jensen face to face, Jared’s got to admit that he’s slightly put out by the outcome.  
  
Not that he’d been expecting Jensen to leap up and rush to embrace him with joy, he thinks, swiping a hand up and down through the door knob to the bathroom, watching the metal pass through him without so much as a single sensation. At least, though, he hadn’t wanted to  _scare_  Jensen. Naturally the one time he legitimately scares Jensen is the one time he’s not even trying.  
  
If there’s any one thing Jared has learned in….however long he has been dead, it’s that people are easy to scare. You move a potted plant from the window to the counter. You flick the lights a few times. Throw a book across the room, they go bonkers. Screaming and yelling and running out the door.  
  
Jensen’s a bit unorthodox. And save for the occasional shower breakdown, Jensen’s been remarkably calm about this situation.  
  
Jensen’s stubborn. Jared should have known from the second he walked into the house and picked Jared’s room, of all places. Usually people moving into this house have the self preservation to pick other rooms. Sense the vibe, pick up the Something Off that Jared seems to exude like an exceptionally pungent smell (that smell probably being, in this case, the scent of the dead). Jensen just marched right in and made himself at home.  
  
He’s also kind of an asshole, but Jared’s never been one to be intimidated by that type of personality.  
  
Especially now that Jensen’s pretty much all he’s got.  
  
“You’re gonna have to come out eventually,” Jared huffs impatiently. “Look, I said I wasn’t going to hurt you, I’m sorry about the whole ‘boo’ thing, okay? I just thought you were harder to scare than that, jeez.”  
  
Another choked off cough that sounds half offended, and Jared’s delighted to hear the water shut off. He bounces on his heels, counting down the seconds till Jensen opens that door and looks  _at_  Jared.  
  
The small giggle that bubbles past Jared’s lips comes so habitually that he forgets to stifle it out of politeness. But the notion of having to stifle it is exciting because it means Jensen can  _hear_  him. Jensen can hear Jared and Jensen will walk out the door and look  _at_  Jared instead of  _through_  Jared and it’s been (months? Years? Decades?) a while since a single person has done that.  
  
Jared runs back over to the bed and seats himself on the mattress, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible. Not that he’s actually threatening on any level, but he figures the more innocent he looks, the better it is for Jensen’s health.  
  
A creak sounds as the bathroom door eases open, tendrils of fog dissipating in the cooler air of the bedroom.  
  
“I’m coming out now,” Jensen grunts.  
  
“Okay,” Jared says.  
  
“I’m going to be naked.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Don’t look.”  
  
Jared responds by shutting his eyes tight, biting down on his lip to keep from laughing as he hears the rapid sprinting of Jensen rifling through his drawers and swearing under his breath.  
  
“Godda—did you switch my underwear and socks to the bottom drawer again?” Jensen sounds a lot less on the verge of another hysterical outburst and more like he wants to try and exorcise Jared again. Which is good. Homicidal Jensen is something Jared can handle, mostly because homicidal is Jensen’s general setting ninety nine percent of the time.  
  
“Damn. Thought you wouldn’t notice. You usually don’t. Or if you do, you don’t  _say_  anything. Sorry. I’ll stop talking.” He’s not sorry, and he thinks Jensen is plenty aware of that.  
  
The sound of movement has ceased, and Jared peeks through the crack of his eyelids to find Jensen staring at him, fully clothed but not entirely dry, patches of water seeping through his clothes. There’s a ten foot stretch of space between them and Jensen’s standing like he’s prepped for battle, arms crossed over his chest as he watches Jared like a hawk.  
  
Jared feels exposed for the first time in ages, he wonders if it’d be too conspicuous to cheer about that.  
  
“This is so weird.”  
  
“Tell me about it,” Jared agrees. “Is weird…okay?”  
  
Jensen jerks his chin in a gesture that Jared has seen enough to know that it communicates ‘I don’t give a single fuck’ but he still responds, “Weird will just have to do for now.”  
  
There’s a moment more of staring. Jared’s less intimidated by Jensen and more embarrassed. Donna seemed to have left out Impolite Staring from her parental teachings to her kid, because Jensen stares unabashed, not checking Jared out as much as he is evaluating Jared. The calculating expression slackens and Jensen’s eyes go wide as saucers.  
  
“Oh my god.”  
  
“What?” Jared yelps, following Jensen’s line of sight to the bed and—  
  
Oh yeah. That.  
  
“What the fuck happened last night?” Jensen’s stalking forward and ripping the sheets—bloody, feather covered, charred sheets--off the bed, kicking aside the Ouija Board, now covered in singe marks, from where it had fallen onto the floor. “Jesus, it looks like someone was murdered. Why didn’t you wake me up?”  
  
“Because I didn’t appear in the bathtub until about five minutes before you woke up!” Jared exclaims, watching as Jensen rather comically paces his room in circles, searching for a place to hide the murder sheets. On any other day, Jared would find this kind of duress in Jensen hilarious. But this whole can-be-seen-and-heard thing makes him partially culpable for Jensen’s pain, as opposed to just the invisible tormentor.  
  
“The bathtub?” Jensen balls up the sheet into a tight bundle and climbs up on a chair to shove it into the very top of his closet.  
  
“Yes. The bathtub.”  
  
“Why the hell do you wake up in the bathtub?”  
  
“The same reason you listen to nothing but shitty music,” Jared retorts, refusing to look abashed when Jensen throws him a glare. “I don’t go to the bathtub, I just end up there. Whenever I fall asleep, disappear, whatever, I always end up there.”  
  
Jensen’s stopped shoving the crime scene evidence in his closet, and he looks down at Jared, considering. There’s something about the wet, disheveled, lost little sheep look that Jared knows means trouble.  
  
Really, he knew Jensen would be nothing  _but_  trouble from the start.  
  
“Jensen?” Donna’s voice and the rotating of the doorknob gives them all of two seconds to panic, Jensen cursing with a whispered “Shit shit shit” and shoving any and all magic paraphernalia under his bed, Jared looking frantically for a place to hide before realizing that Donna can’t  _see_  him.  
  
Or can she?  
  
The door swings open before Jared has a moment longer to consider, and Jensen isn’t able to intercept in time for Jared to hide. Mrs. Ackles pokes her head in, eyes sweeping over the room, darting around Jared as if he isn’t even there.  
  
“Jensen. I thought I heard screaming earlier, but Mac and I figured you were playing music again…everything alright?” Her gaze is locked right on Jensen, through Jared. Jensen blinks, jaw slack for a second, until Jared mutters, “Say something”, relieved when Jensen’s mother can’t hear him.  
  
“Yeah! Yeah,” Jensen rubs at his eyes rather dramatically, like he’d just woken up, and Jared can practically see the strain in his face to not let his eyes stray to Jared. “I was just uh…testing out the acoustics of my room with this new album I got. Everything’s good.” He smiles, over placating and so full of bullshit Jared’s amazed Mrs. Ackles doesn’t see it.  
  
“School’s in twenty minutes. I already took Mac. You might want to be on your way, or you’ll be late.” Donna stands on tip toe to peer about the room some more, her nose wrinkling as she takes in the state of the room. “Jeez, what’d you do in here last night? You forgot to clean up your rager.”  
  
Jensen barks out a laugh that’s far too loud to be even half convincing. Donna looks around the room a bit more before ducking out, absolutely oblivious to Jared’s presence, thank god. He can’t even imagine trying to explain this to Donna, who’s every bit as practical as her son, just with politeness where there is rudeness in Jensen’s case.  
  
“Be sure to get to school on time!” Donna reminds, and Jensen watches until she gets to the top of the stairs before slamming his door shut and rounding on Jared.  
  
“She can’t see you.”  
  
“Uh-uh.”  
  
“Only I can.”  
  
“Looks like it.”  
  
“Shit.” Jensen swears again and slumps against the door, legs bending as he slides down to sprawl on the floor, head between his legs.  
  
“Hey are you…are you freaking out again?” Jared asks nervously.  
  
“You’re not?” Jensen raises his head.  
  
“I mean. You did try to kill me. Or, exorcise me, or whatever. So the fact that I’m still here is a victory within itself if you ask me.”  
  
Jensen’s pale face flushes red, and he stands, staring Jared down. “Victory,” he says flatly. “Some victory if you ask me. I set my fucking bed on fire, and for some reason, you’re still here. Care to elaborate?”  
  
Jared scratches the back of his neck, self conscious under the ire of Jensen’s stare. Up until now Jensen’s temper tantrums had been almost entertaining. It was  _funny_  to watch the shocked anger when Jared decided to steal all his socks or throw his CDs out the window, hell, it was damn near the best entertainment Jared had had in this afterlife. Jared had kind of glowed under the force of that ire, and even now, with it directed at him in a full throttle Patented Ackles Glare, he can’t help but feel the slightest bit delighted. Attempted murder, face to face conversation, a magic spell, it’s the most exciting thing Jared can ever recall having happened to him.  
  
Which might say a lot about exactly how long he’s been cooped up in this house, but Jared would like to think he’s faring well given the circumstances.  
  
“Dunno,” Jared says cheekily, trying to keep from skipping about the room, just so he can note Jensen’s eyes tracking the motion. “You’re the wizard here, you tell me.”  
  
“I tried to exorcise you. You were supposed to leave. And when you refused to leave, I did a communication spell, so I could kindly ask you face to face to get the fuck out of my house and my life,” Jensen says between even breaths, hands twitching.  
  
“Touchy much? I think we both know that I was here first.”  
  
“You knocked out my sister,” Jensen says flatly, standing to his full height and despite being smaller than Jared, he’s still kind of intimidating. Not that he can touch Jared at this point. “I don’t give a flying  _fuck_ if you were here first. You could have killed her.”  
  
Jared holds his hands up, even as Jensen advances, bristling. “That was an accident, in my defense. I didn’t want to hurt Mac.”  
  
“You don’t get to call her that.” Jensen clenches his fist, baring his teeth. “Not unless you’ve got a good explanation for why you sent a ceiling fan crashing on her.”  
  
They stare at each other, and Jared waits for Jensen to answer his own question, but clearly Jensen is unobservant as ever.  
  
“Isn’t it obvious? You sat in my bathtub.”  
  
Jensen blinks, derailed. “I…what?”  
  
“You sat in my bathtub. Don’t take it personally or anything. It’s kind of a territorial thing I just…I really don’t like it when people sit in my bathtub,” Jared says sheepishly, unsure of how to explain it. He’s pretty sure that ghosts don’t have panic attacks or hysterical outbursts, but what happened when Jensen sat in the bathtub was easily the closest thing to it. Jared couldn’t even recall exactly what had happened until Mac was already unconscious and Jensen had already made the promise to kill him.  
  
“You hurt my sister. Because I sat. In a bathtub?” Jensen asks in fragmented sentences, interspersed with jaw clenches.  
  
It’s probably not the best way to explain the situation, Jared is well aware. But pushing Jensen’s buttons has more or less become Jared’s favorite hobby in the past few months so, he’s helpless to respond with anything but, “That about sums it up, yeah.”  
  
The effect would be almost comical if it didn’t involve Jensen dissolving into some kind of hybrid meltdown slash temper tantrum in one, heaving breaths and clenching fists, eyes bugging. Jensen doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would pick fights, but Jared’s not entirely sure he’s past spontaneously combusting, purple faced and stuttering, “You. Fucking. You. Fucking--” over and over.  
  
So Jared does what he's done a dozen and one times before--watching Jensen slough through schoolwork, watching Jensen stare at himself in the mirror for long periods of time in a quiet bathroom after showering, watching Jensen toss fitfully in his sleep-- reaches out and pats Jensen's shoulder. An essentially ineffective gesture, but maybe it will help now that Jensen can see it.  
  
“Hey, it’s going to be okay.” He lifts his hand and brushes it over Jensen’s shoulder, settling it where he can imagine feeling the worn thin cotton of Jensen’s dirty t-shirt, the solid shape of a substance beneath his palm. It passes through Jensen, just as it has a dozen times before.  
  
Jensen drops to the floor like a stone.  
  
His limbs are twitching, entire frame shivering violently, and the second Jared bends over, concerned and kind of terrified that he killed him, Jensen bites out, “Get. Back.”  
  
Jared flees to the other end of the bedroom, flattens himself against a wall and watches, transfixed, as Jensen’s shivers subside and he slowly reverts to the regularly scheduled programming of standing and glaring in Jared’s general direction. His skin is pale again and there are small crescent marks where he dug his nails into his own arms trying to hug himself back to warmth. He looks miserable. And all Jared had done was  _touch_  him.  
  
“Um. Are you okay?”  
  
Jensen raises a finger in a ‘sh’ gesture and collects himself for one more minute. The silence is too long for Jared to cope with.  
  
“Guess that communication spell came with a Health Benefits package, eh?” He jokes lamely. Jensen stares him down, until Jared clears his throat to scrape aside the silence and tries again. “Where’d you learn that stuff anyhow?”  
  
Creak of floorboards as Jensen moves, and begins collecting various items scattered about his room.  
  
“A friend,” is all Jensen replies, tight-lipped as can be. It takes all of thirty seconds for him to have his bag packed, yanking on ratty Converse and heading out the door and down the stairs.  
  
Jared follows.  
  
“Who?”  
  
“That’s for me to know.”  
  
“Where are you going?”  
  
“Away from you,” Jensen snarls.  
  
“Yeah but  _where_?”  
  
“Where do you think?  _School_.”  
  
“You can’t go to school!” Jared panics, still following Jensen. “What am I supposed to do?”  
  
“What do you usually do when I’m gone?”  
  
Jared opens his mouth, then stops. Answering ‘wait until you come back’ seems just a tad bit creepy, so he settles for shrugging.  
  
“Just do that, okay? It’s not like you’re unaccustomed to being alone.”  
  
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Jared mopes.  
  
He watches Jensen continue down the stairs and walk towards the door when a low gut tugging sensation kicks in, beneath his belly button and akin to nausea. He can already sense the bathtub creeping up on him like falling into a mattress and the feeling deepens with every step Jensen takes away from him.  
  
“Stop walking.”  
  
Jensen stops, and so does the tugging. Interesting.  
  
Jensen rolls his eyes and continues walking so Jared follows, relieved when the nausea fades.  
  
He has to go with Jensen. It’s not even a choice. Whatever juju Jensen had worked last night had formed some sort of bond between them. And now they’re stuck like rubber and glue.  
  
Jensen’s out the front door and getting into his truck beneath the car port when Jared rushes over the threshold, then stops, staring down at himself.  
  
He’s out in sunlight, out of the house,  _free_.  
  
He looks at Jensen, that near giddy laughter bubbling up again.  
  
“Whoa,” Jared laughs.  
  
“Shit,” Jensen groans.  
  
\--  
  
“So what, we’re like, connected now?” Jensen has to laugh, because there’s no other way to look at this situation without going stark raving mad. He’s been on the phone with Meggie for ten minutes now, and despite having explained all the inexplicable effects of the spell and Jared’s sudden ability to leave the house, he still feels misplaced, in some weirdo surreal dream turned nightmare. Jensen leans back against the bed of his truck, brushing dust off the corner and tucking the phone tighter against his ear, lowering his voice just slightly.  
  
“It would seem so,” Meggie replies, over the noise of what Jensen assumes is the open voodoo shop, customers chatting in the background. “Like I said, magic isn’t fool proof, and is certainly not without its surprises and kinks. The spell you cast did indeed allow you to communicate with Jared, opening up all senses to a specific spiritual level so you could see, hear, and feel Jared. And in turn, he can do the same with you. A bond has been forged. So my best guess would be that that bond is like a tether between the two of you, an invisible thread that keeps you connected. Where you go, he goes as well.”  
  
“There’s got to be a way to reverse this.” Jensen looks over his shoulder, stares at a laughing and skipping— _skipping_ —Jared out on the front lawn beneath the knotted oak trees. “Or at least make it so he doesn’t have to go everywhere with me. Meggie, c’mon…I have school, I have a life.”  
  
“You’ve only got one solution, then: talk to him,” she says.  
  
“About what?”  
  
“Ask him where he’s from, what he remembers. Find out what makes him tick. The whole point of the communication spell was to find out exactly why he refuses to leave. You need to help him cross over, guide him to the next life.”  
  
“So what, I’m the Ghost Whisperer now?” It’s the last thing Jensen wants. Even in the wall of hot humid morning air he can feel the residual cold from the moment Jared had tried to touch him back in his room. Just like with the spell, his muscles had locked down with the ice that had shot down his spine. It had easily been the least pleasant thing of the last twenty four hours, and that includes slicing his hand open for a blood sacrifice, lighting his bed on fire, and waking up able to talk to dead people.  
  
Or, one dead person.  
  
“The exorcism didn’t work. Clearly there’s another reason Jared’s sticking around, unfinished business keeping him here. You need to find the business and solve it. Either do your homework or get used to him, because he’ll probably be around for a while,” Meggie says.  
  
Jensen groans. “I thought you were supposed to help me.”  
  
“This is me helping.” Meggie sighs. “I am sorry, Jensen. I wasn’t sure exactly what would happen when you did that spell. But you find out more about him, and we’ll figure out something in the meantime. Now, don’t you have school?”  
  
Jensen curses and hangs up, not entirely sure he imagined Meggie’s smoky laughter on the other end.  
  
In the end, it’s not really a choice. There’s no way to physically stop Jared from coming along for the ride.  
  
“Don’t touch anything.”  
  
“Jensen, I can’t actually touch anything. Move stuff on occasion? Sure. But I can’t do it intentionally. I either have to concentrate really hard, or be really angry, or scared. I can’t just open up the glove compartment, turn the radio dial. It wears me out. Your precious truck is safe, s’long as you don’t try to kill me while we drive,” Jared says, staring out the window.  
  
“Oh. Right.” Jensen chews on the inside of his cheek, sure he’s already gnawed it partially raw. He focuses on driving to school and not on Jared, who appears to be vibrating where he is located in the passenger seat.  
  
“Gosh, this is amazing! I forgot…was it always this beautiful here? What do the trees smell like? Is it hot out? Can you roll down the window? I wonder if the wind…I would imagine I can’t feel wind but there’s always a chance—“  
  
“Have you always talked this much?”  
  
“Always,” Jared responds. “You just couldn’t hear me.”  
  
Jensen rolls down the window to a hopelessly gray sky as per Jared’s request. The syrupy heat that forces itself into the truck is almost welcome, Jensen still feels the slightest bit chilled from earlier. He wouldn’t classify the awkwardness between him and Jared as tension, but rather the strange position of two people who have been living together for almost two months now without having any actual knowledge of one another. Everything he knows in relation to Jared is a list that—for the most part—connects back to things that annoy Jensen. Because apparently, Jared’s number one pastime being dead was finding ways to torture Jensen.  
  
He’s going to have to learn other things if he wants to get anywhere with this. Investigate, research, call it what you will. He has to not just talk at Jared like he has for weeks, but listen as well. Jensen’s exhausted with the simple notion.  
  
“So. The bathtub, huh?” He tries after a moment.  
  
Jared nods.  
  
“Any idea why the bathtub?”  
  
Jared’s lower lip juts out as he thinks. “I think I died there.”  
  
“Really?” Well ain’t that just morbid. “How?”  
  
“Killed myself,” Jared says conversationally, as if sharing what time of day it is.  
  
Jensen forces his eyebrows to keep from shooting up to his hairline and keeps his foot steady on the gas pedal. “You certainly don’t beat around the bush, now do ya Jared?”  
  
“What’s there to be sensitive about? I’m  _already dead_.”  
  
He’s too chatty for suicide, Jensen decides rather abruptly. There must have been another cause of death. An aneurysm. A dizzy spell. Hitting his head on the tub. In the hour that he’s been able to see and hear Jared, Jensen has a hard time even fathoming that someone who seems so delighted by every little thing about life could ever want to kill themselves. It makes no sense.  
  
“What exactly happened up in your bedroom?” Jared asks. “When I--” He trails off; the word ‘touch’ isn’t exactly applicable here.  
  
“It’s one of the side effects the spell.” Jensen shudders slightly, despite the heat. “We’re connected now. All of our senses are bonded, I guess. We hear each other, see each other, and apparently feel each other.”  
  
“I wouldn’t really call what just happened ‘feeling’. I practically froze you, Jensen.”  
  
“Yeah, well.” Jensen grinds his molars together. “Just don’t do it again.”  
  
Jared nods, cowed. “Okay.” He dips his fingers outside the window, moving his hand in a wave motion as the road and wind pass it, a small frown increasing on his face the longer he holds his hand out.  
  
“Do you remember it?” If Jared can cut to the quick, so can Jensen.  
  
“Dying? That’s rather nosy, don’t you think?”  
  
Now it’s Jensen’s turn to look incredulous, but Jared grins jokingly. “Let me put it this way,” he says, kicking his legs up on the dashboard, something Jensen shouldn’t care about, because it’s not like Jared can track mud on the dashboard or anything, but it annoys him just the same. “You don’t remember being born, right? That’s kind of how death works. I don’t remember dying.”  
  
“None of it? No how, when, why?”  
  
“Nada,” Jared sighs, running a hand through his hair.  
  
“How old were you?”  
  
“How old do I look?”  
  
Jared turns to face him full on, floppy, just a tad-too-long hair, lengthy coltish limbs. He may have a few inches on Jensen in terms of height, but there’s something around the corners of Jared’s perpetual smile that screams ‘CHILD’.  
  
“Seventeen,” Jensen concludes. “You look seventeen.”  
  
Which makes Jensen feel all the more uncomfortable, knowing Jared died at around the same age Jensen is right now.  
  
“I bet I’m a hundred,” Jared grins. “Which is older than you, kiddo.” He shoves his whole arm out the window, leaning over like a dog, Jensen half expects to see his tongue flying in the wind. The air feels like a sauna and smells slightly of mildew, but he couldn’t look more delighted.  
  
A hundred years older, Jared may be. But a large part of him is still just a kid.  
  
Jensen cranks up the music really loud so he doesn’t have to hear himself think anymore.  
  
\--  
  
“Remember, if you need to talk to me. Just talk. But know that I won’t respond.” Jensen shuts the driver’s side door.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“And don’t go wandering off anywhere. We don’t know how this whole invisible thread thing works.”  
  
“We can try now.” Jared’s voice fades off and Jensen looks around frantically, watching, horrified, as Jared jogs straight to the middle of a parking lot, cracking up as a car drives through him, followed by another, and another. He gets about fifty feet then stops, frowning at himself, before jogging back to Jensen.  
  
“That’s how far I can wander,” he answers simply.  
  
“And you know this how?”  
  
Jared shrugs, and Jensen yanks his backpack out of the truck bed and shoulders it. “Right before I wake up in the bathtub, before I disappear, I get this weird tugging sensation in my gut. Sort of like a black paradoxical vortex of horror in my lower intestine pulling me downwards towards the gates of hell.”  
  
“Sounds lovely.”  
  
“It ain’t no picnic, I’ll tell you that.”  
  
Jensen snorts, and Jared tips his head, looking beyond overjoyed at Jensen’s having done so. They look up at the high school together.  
  
“We’re late,” Jensen explains, gesturing towards the school. “But that’s okay, because I’m going to set some ground rules.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“Don’t expect me to answer when I talk to you. Don’t expect me to look at you. And  _don’t_  touch anything.”  
  
“I already told you—“  
  
“And yet my boxers still go missing on a daily basis.”  
  
“Okay, but that’s different—“  
  
“Say ‘Yes Jensen I won’t touch anything’.”  
  
Jared sighs, hanging his head. “Fine. Yes Jensen I won’t touch anything.”  
  
“Now promise you won’t touch me.”  
  
Jared looks up, alarmed. “I told you that was an accident.”  
  
“That’s not the point,” Jensen cuts him off, keeping his distance from Jared but standing as tall as possible. “If you pull that shit in here, it’s going to look like I’m an epileptic running a temperature twenty degrees lower than I should be. I don’t want you to tag along, but you insist, so those are my rules. You follow them, or so help me I’ll light your bathtub on fire. ”  
  
Jared must take the threat seriously, because he doesn’t roll his eyes or laugh, as Jensen has learned he does often whenever Jensen opens his mouth.  
  
“We should just be straight about this, Jared. I don’t want you here. I have never wanted you here. All I want is to be left alone. So the less present you can make yourself without the swirling vortex of bathtub or whatever, the happier I’ll be.”  
  
Jared grumbles, but he doesn’t make too much of a fuss or look put out, Jensen notices. He’s already bouncing on his heels again as Jensen pushes through the door to the main hallway of the school. Jared just walks right through it, running past Jensen and proceeding to shove various limbs into people’s torsos, fists and feet protruding through heads and crotch areas. To Jensen’s relief, none of the students seem affected by Jared touching them like Jensen had. There’s also the worry about that same fact, that Jared is able to only ice him.  
  
Jared’s head sticks face first out of a kid’s chest, grinning wildly. “Hey look, Jensen! No hands!”  
  
Jensen blinks. This is going to take some getting used to.  
  
\--  
  
The day begins falling to shit as soon as it starts, not that Jensen had really hoped for anything else.  
  
Ignoring Semi-Corporeal-Jared is not as easy, it turns out, as ignoring Invisible-Jared. Jared not only seems to enjoy this newfound attention, he  _thrives_  on it. The kid never. Shuts. Up. Never stops moving either, walks up to the teacher and all the other students, reading their notebooks over their shoulders, commenting on their clothing. Jensen becomes a radio tuned in to two frequencies, one the real world, the other is Jared world.  
  
As a person barely fit to cope with the real world on a day to day basis, having to tune in to Jared world at the same time leaves Jensen wrecked by lunch, with a headache and a very strong temptation to skip school the rest of the day.  
  
He’s just tucked himself into his usual dark corner of the quad and resigned himself to a lunch of mushy oranges and cashews when Jared plops down next to him, digging his fingers into grass he can’t feel and asking, “Where are all your friends?”  
  
“Friends?” Jensen grunts, gouging the crescent of his thumbnail into the orange peel. “Don’t have ‘em.”  
  
“What do you mean you don’t have friends?”  
  
“What I mean is I don’t want friends.”  
  
Jared gasps like Jensen just said something horribly offensive. “How can you not want friends? Friends are awesome. I had friends when I was alive! They were great!”  
  
“Oh yeah, what were their names?”  
  
Jared pauses, and glares when Jensen laughs. “I can’t remember, but that’s not the point. Friends are people you can count on. What’s so bad about that?”  
  
“I think you had me at ‘people’.” Jensen shudders.  
  
Jared stares at him, recognition dawning on his face before he says, “There is something really wrong with you, Jensen Ackles.”  
  
Jensen shrugs. “How about you then? You’re obviously here for a reason. Let’s figure that one out.”  
  
“Figure what one out?”  
  
“What….unfinished business you have,” Jensen answers. At Jared’s clueless expression, Jensen continues. “Look. I don’t know if you realized this, but you’re dead. And dead people are not supposed to be stuck here. They’re supposed to be elsewhere. But the exorcism didn’t work, so that’s what the communication spell is about. So we can solve the mystery of your unfinished business, and figure out how to get you to elsewhere.”  
  
“Elsewhere.” Jared frowns.  
  
“I mean. C’mon. You had to know this was temporary. You didn’t really think I’d let you stay a ghost forever, did you?” He smiles cajolingly, like it’s a sales pitch and not practically a suicide pact. Jensen tried to exorcise Jared for Christ’s sake; he couldn’t possibly think Jensen wanted him to stick around, not after last night. “You’ve gotta move on, Jared. Go into the light, move into the next world, whatever the fuck they call it.”  
  
“Isn’t that for me to decide?” Jared asks.  
  
“Not when I’m in charge. No.”  
  
“And why are you the one in charge?”  
  
“Because I’m not the one who wakes up in a bathtub every morning. I’m actually alive.”  
  
Jared tucks his knees under his chin. “Joke’s on you. I don’t know what my business is. I don’t know my full name or cause of death or time of death, or anything about my past life. How am I supposed to remember my unfinished business if I can’t remember anything else about myself?”  
  
And that, right there, is the crux of it. Jared’s stuck in some weird kind of rut, and as long as he’s here in that rut, he’s here stuck with Jensen.  
  
He’s not happy about this. In fact he’s downright pissed off, but Jared’s endless excitement about being able to talk and be seen has sapped Jensen of all energy. Any and all fury is stemmed to mild irritation; it’s all he has energy for. In the grand scheme of things this is probably just one more disaster in a long line of further disasters, he’s lucky that way.  
  
Jensen chucks his orange away and stands up, the pounding in his head increased to a full on riot. He needs sleep. He needs the last two months of hell to have been a dream.  
  
Jared doesn’t ask where he’s going, but Jensen assumes that he follows.  
  
\--  
  
In the end, Jensen has to bring Jared to the library. Felicia’s depending on him to show, and in all honesty, having someone other than dead people to talk to is the best kind of relief in this moment. Jared bursts in the doors ahead of Jensen, marveling at the shelves and dissolving through the stacks one by one. His shoulders sag with exhaustion simply from watching Jared frolic.  
  
“You’re late!” Felicia calls from the desk, uncrossing her combat boot clad feet and hopping off the stool. “Meggie said you’d probably need the day off. That much blood loss can’t be healthy, and you look like shit.”  
  
“Thanks,” says Jensen flatly. “As if it isn’t your fault I’m in this mess in the first place.”  
  
“You wanted a solution I gave you a solution.” Felicia raises her hands in defense. “Well. Sort of a solution. How is the lil ghostie?”  
  
“Who’s she?” Jared jerks his thumb at Felicia, narrowing his eyes.  
  
“That’s Felicia.” Jensen says, deciding that if he’s going to hide this from everyone else in his life, he might as well clue one person in. “And play nice.”  
  
“Oh my god. You brought him? He’s here??” Felicia explodes past the desk and runs over, grabbing Jensen’s sleeve. She walks through Jared several times, arms thrown out like a blindfolded kid searching for the piñata. “Oh my god, this is amazing. Where is he, Jensen?”  
  
“You’re standing in him,” Jensen responds, and Felicia’s peals of laughter make Jared laugh too.  
  
“I could kiss you, Jensen, I really could. On second thought, I think I will.” She bounds over and yanks Jensen down, pecking his cheek. “This is  _awesome_. Jared? Are you there?”  
  
Jared raises his eyebrows at Jensen, who shrugs, and Jared proceeds to nudge a book off the front desk and onto the floor. Felicia claps her hands in delight.  
  
“We may not have a Ouija board with us, but I can still give you the grand tour. You can knock, right? Just knock in response to my questions for now. Jensen, due date slips are waiting for you on the counter.”  
  
Jensen gets to work, and the tour takes a full fifteen minutes, despite the lack of actual communication other than Felicia’s chatter. Jensen settles into a chair and considers that he’s been fighting off one hell of a migraine all day. There are a few scant moments of bliss, before Jared rounds the corner, Felicia bouncing like a ball with all her energy in his wake.  
  
“Jensen, he’s  _amazing_. He can move stuff, and make noises!” Felicia’s pale face is flushed. “I’m declaring every day bring your ghost to work day, no exceptions. Want some coffee?”  
  
Jensen nods his thanks and she bounds off; coffee is exactly what he needs. Jared tucks his hands in his pockets. “Is that…is she your girlfriend?”  
  
Jensen’s so taken aback by the directness of the question that he lets the book slip out of his hand. “Felicia? No. She’s with Meggie. The woman who knows all the spells.”  
  
“She’s very comfortable with you,” Jared says shortly, and Jensen laughs harsh, picking up the book.  
  
“Yeah, she kind of grows on you without your express permission. Like a fungus.”  
  
“I heard that!” Felicia shouts from the staffroom.  
  
Jared laughs. “So. No girlfriend, then?”  
  
“Why the sudden curiosity?”  
  
Jared shrugs. “You don’t have any photographs in your bedroom.”  
  
“Come again?” Jensen rolls the individual stamp numbers to the correct return date.  
  
Jared pushes himself up onto the counter, feet dangling, and holds his translucent hand up. “Most of the people who have lived in my house—at one time or another—have had photographs on the wall. Family. Best friends. Spouses. Significant others,” beams of sun from the skylight above pool around Jared’s fingers like yellow ribbons and he rotates his arm, Jared marveling for a second. “People are sentimental, they have keepsakes to remind them of the people they care about. You don’t, so I guess I was wondering if there were people that you would take photos of, if you could.”  
  
He shakes out his hand, as if the sunlight had actually burnt him, and turns his gaze back to Jensen, who hadn’t meant to be staring. Jared’s way too insightful than is entirely comfortable, that’s for sure.  
  
“No, I don’t have girlfriend,” Jensen says shortly, dutifully turning back to the date slips. “Bit preoccupied at the moment.”  
  
There may have been a point where Jensen shared things with Jared, but that inclination faded the second Jared could share back. So Jensen doesn’t feel like pointing out that the main reason there’s no girlfriend is because Jensen doesn’t like girls in the first place. Because that would involve explaining the horror story that is sexual discovery when you’re some loser kid with no Dad and ratty clothes. It would mean telling Jared what is was like being fifteen and terrified to so much as look at the cute guy who sat next to him in Honors Biology, of explaining to his Mom exactly why he hadn’t wanted to take Alona Tal to winter formal, despite her invitation, of muscling up and realizing that he didn’t give a shit what people thought anyway.  
  
It was a long and drawn out soap opera sans heated and passionate kisses. So yeah, Jensen’s not really up for the idea of telling Jared he’s gay. It’s not Jared’s business; it’s nobody’s business but Jensen’s.  
  
“What he means,” Felicia says, shoving a Styrofoam cup into Jensen’s hand, “Is that I’m out of his league and he’s given up on finding anyone else as stellar. Drink up Jensen, those book carts aren’t going to sort themselves. Jared, you’re a guest, make yourself at home.”  
  
“She’d take a good photograph, I think. Girlfriend or not,” Jared muses.  
  
Felicia spends the afternoon cracking one-sided jokes that Jared only adds to, and half of them even manage to make Jensen laugh, despite how tired he is. He shelves books and thinks of the blank walls of his room, of the fact that his is always the smallest pile of stuff whenever their fractured family moves elsewhere.  
  
Photographs are for people who want to keep things, keep people.  
  
Truth be told, Jensen hasn’t felt the need to keep anything in a long, long time.


	7. Chapter 7

 

The remainder of the week chugs by at a torturous pace, and by the time Friday comes around Jensen’s seeming indifference to the majority of humanity has ratcheted up to little tolerance.  
  
And then gym class happens.  
  
Coach Manners works the class like dogs all over again, hearing no pleas for mercy whatsoever as he drills the class in calisthenics until everyone’s sweating and groaning in the least sexual way possible. Jared, of course, is delighted by this turn of events, finds every bit of Jensen’s exhausted demeanor an absolute pleasure of the highest degree. The entire class is in shit spirits by the time they’re dismissed, the hot Louisiana sun boiling their blood, humidity cooking them in their own skin.  
  
He’s in the locker room pulling on his jeans, debating whether or not he should say ‘fuck it’ and take a shower, even with Jared following him around like a lost puppy. Better to just shower at home in the privacy of the bathroom than in public, where Jared could get into god knows what while Jensen’s trying to clean himself up.  
  
He slips each of his bracelets on one by one, leather cords and random friendship bracelets that he’d made himself with whatever he could find, hemp rope and discarded electrical supplies. Leather band with metal studs on the left hand, Mackenzie’s clay beaded one on the right. Jensen doesn’t keep much of his belongings over time, but the bracelets are something he always keeps, and only adds to, never takes away from.  
  
“Putting on your jewelry, Ackles?”  
  
There are assholes, and then there are Assholes. Christian Kane is a capital A double S asshole, complete with cocky attitude and a pack of hyenas to do his bidding, picking off the weaker antelope from the pack and tearing them to shreds.  
  
They’d like to think Jensen is a wounded antelope. He’s more of a lone wolf.  
  
Tightening some of the snaps and ties on his bracelets, he shoulders his backpack and heads over to the sink to wash his face. Chris’ gang snickers as Jensen walks by them.  
  
“Those guys are jerks,” Jared points out, looking uneasy.  
  
Shrugging in response, Jensen bends over the sink, cupping water in his hands.  
  
“They won’t bother me if I ignore them. Just a bunch of dick-measuring chickenshits.”  
  
“What’s that Ackles?” Chris lopes over, leering, burning for a fight. He’s just as tall as Jensen, but still, the mere thought of having to deal with Chris in any sort of way is annoying. Jensen’s already got an annoying talking ghost on his list. He doesn’t need a meat-head bully on top of it.  
  
“Nothing,” Jensen says blandly, because he doesn’t care. He really doesn’t care about whatever hackles he’s raising. He wants to get out of this locker room and he wants to get home.  
  
“Yeah that’s what I thought,” Chris says. “So why don’t you take your cheap ass shirt and your jewelry and get outta here, faggot.”  
  
“What did you call him?” Jared snaps, advancing on Chris and looking murderous, propelling forward so quickly he accidentally walks through Chris and has to backtrack. “Take it back, you dick.”  
  
Jensen’s all for getting the fuck out of dodge but, Chris Kane seems to have other plans in mind.  
  
“Hey! Faggot! Where you going?” There’s a small object Chris is tossing in the air, white, compact, rectangular. Jensen’s iPod. Jensen’s lifeline. “Missing something, aren’t you?”  
  
He’s not entirely sure who makes the move first. He has every intent of beating the shit out of Chris just for touching his stuff, but Jared beats him to it. The iPod flies from Chris’ hand, spiraling through the air until Jensen leaps to catch it. Chris doesn’t have much time to blink or consider what just happened before one of Jensen’s textbooks is flying from the locker and smacking him soundly in the head, a solid thwap that’s going to leave one nasty bruise.  
  
“Man, what the fuck?!” Chris is yelling, the hyenas are howling as the locker room becomes a circus of levitating objects.  
  
“Apologize!” Jared shouts, looking furious, even more furious at the fact that Chris can’t seem to hear him. “Jensen, tell him to apologize!”  
  
The locker doors are all slamming open and closed, and the Quarterback of the football team is getting his ass kicked by Jensen’s calculus textbook.  
  
Thank fuck it’s Friday.  
  
“What in the Samhain is going on here?” Coach Manners shouts, storming into the locker room. Every flying object drops to the floor and all the lockers still instantly. “Whose ass am I kicking today? Kane! Ackles! Explain yourselves!”  
  
“Coach, I just said ‘excuse me’ to get to the sinks and he went crazy! Started beating me with his textbook!”  
  
“Well great, physical violence  _and_  destruction of school property. Excellent. Saturday detention for you, Ackles.”  
  
“Detention!” Jensen sputters. “Are you serious? He called me a--”  
  
“You want me to take the accusation of physical violence to Principal Kripke and see just how serious I am, Ackles?” Manners raises an eyebrow, and Jensen shakes his head dully, quietly seething. “Didn’t think so. Pack your things up, Ackles, I’ll write your note. 7AM tomorrow morning.”  
  
“7 AM?!”  
  
“Is that a problem, Ackles?”  
  
Jensen glares at his shoes. “No Coach.”  
  
It’s not until he gets to his truck and he turns around to rip Jared a new one that he realizes Jared’s vanished.  
  
\--  
  
The last thing Jensen wants to be on any Saturday at seven am in the morning is awake.  
  
The last place Jensen wants to be on any given day ever is high school.  
  
It’s even worse, because Jared decided to come back around this morning, bursting through the refrigerator after Jensen pulled out the milk.  
  
Though he’s apologized about two dozen times since leaving the school, it doesn’t make Jensen any more inclined to talk to Jared.  
  
“Look. I am in detention because you couldn’t seem to keep from Hulking out,” Jensen mutters as they approach the school detention room. “So just. Shut up.”  
  
“It’s not like I can  _help_  it, Jensen. I wasn’t thinking ‘throw the books and slam the lockers’, it just happened. I can only do that kind of stuff when I’m focusing on one object, or I’m just excited. I’m sorry.”  
  
He  _does_  sound sorry, but Jensen’s not about to budge any time soon. It’s seven am on a Saturday. He’s got nothing to say to Jared for the next eight hours.  
  
Playlist #2: Destroy the Machine.  
  
There’s only one other kid in the tiny, windowless, detention room. Jesus, it’s like solitary confinement a million times over. The teacher theoretically in charge watching over them walks in for a brief moment, drones on a bit about the rules for the day, and exits, apparently too apathetic to care that neither Jensen nor the other guy were listening to his lecture in the first place. The door closes with a perfunctory snap, as if to remind them not to leave until they’ve done their time. As if Jensen had other social events to attend to in this lifetime.  
  
“What are you in for?” The other kid, the only other living person in the room, speaks from the back desk as soon as the door closes. Legs kicked up, muddy shoes leaving tracks on the surface. The kid looks far too comfortable with this space to have never been here before.  
  
“I uh. Got into a fight,” Jensen says awkwardly.  
  
“No shit.” Kid uncrosses his legs and throws back his hood. Jensen recognizes him from the first day of classes. He’s friends with the brunette who called Jensen a dickhead by accident. “You’re the maniac that went apeshit on Chris Kane in the locker room?”  
  
“You’re famous.  _We’re_  famous.” Jared grins, loping over to the kid to examine him. “Ask him what he’s heard.”  
  
“Ah, so you heard about that?” Jensen winces, sitting down at a desk slightly distanced from the kid.  
  
“Hell  _yes_  I did.” As if Jensen’s body placement wasn’t a warning to keep distance, the kid swings his legs off the desk and bounds over to Jensen’s desk. “He had it comin, the doucher.”  
  
Jensen raises an eyebrow. “Doucher?”  
  
“An individual in the act of douchery, or being a general douchebag. Has more of a ring to it. You may not hear it often, but I promise you, if anyone’s going to set a trend in this piece of trash high school, it’s me.” A hand is shoved in Jensen’s face. “Chad Michael Murray, Esquire, at your service.”  
  
“Was the middle name really necessary?” Jared snarks, but he’s smiling at Chad, then, at Jensen. “Talk to him.”  
  
“Jensen Ackles,” Jensen responds automatically, reluctantly taking Chad’s hand and trying not to give Jared a look.  
  
“Oh my god, you’re the kid! How the fucknuts did I not recognize you!” Chad yells, smacking a palm to his forehead. “You’re the asshole in my English class! The one that dresses like a unabomber. Of course you beat the shit out of Chris. Jesus, you were probably trying to kill him, weren’t you. Have you ever killed someone before?”  
  
It’s the most surprising ‘nice to meet you’ Jensen’s ever gotten, he can say that for sure.  
  
“No,” Jensen grunts. “He was being an ass. Called me a faggot.” He looks up to see Chad squinting down at him, looking impressed and slightly guarded. “What’d  _you_  get in here for?”  
  
Chad shrugs, but he’s very obviously trying not to look proud of himself, stretching his limbs and flexing his muscles in an almost cartoonish display of what Jensen thinks is supposed to express ‘badass’. But truth be told, the kid’s more Mr. Elastic than Superman, tall and gangly and kind of funny looking with the squinty eyes and spiky blonde hair.  
  
“Tied a bag of firecrackers to the cafeteria lady’s foot on Wednesday. Lit ‘em off just as she was dishing out chili to the cheerleaders. Say what they may, but that woman is spry. Damn near jumped to the ceiling like a cat she was so freaked.”  
  
“Did you  _burn_  her?”  
  
“Hell no, man! They were just the noise-making kind, couldn’t do any real damage. Still funny though.” Chad chuckles to himself, before hopping up onto Jensen’s desk.  
  
It is funny, and when Jensen laughs, and laughs hard, Chad looks almost manic with glee.  
  
“I like you Ackles. You may be a sociopath, but I like you.”  
  
“I’m so honored,” Jensen says dryly.  
  
“I think you have a lot to learn from a Connoisseur like me.”  
  
“Connoisseur of what, exactly?”  
  
Chad blinks at Jensen like he’s slightly stupid. “Of  _life_ , man.”  
  
“He’s either absolutely stupid or absolutely brilliant,” Jared remarks, and Jensen bites down on his lip to keep from laughing.  
  
“And just what, exactly, are you supposed to teach me about life?” Jensen asks, intrigued enough that he feels inclined to keep talking to Chad.  
  
“Look Jenny, can I call you Jenny?” He doesn’t wait to hear Jensen’s answer. “Jenny, it’s a tough world out there. Things can be shit, you can be shit, but there’s a necessity to fun that hermits in training like yourself seem to be lacking, you know?”  
  
Jensen doesn’t know. In fact, he’s almost insulted. “I have fun.”  
  
Now it’s Jared’s turn to scoff, just over Chad’s shoulder. “Forgive me for inputting here, Jensen, but you do not have fun.”  
  
“I do!” Jensen blurts to both Chad and Jared. “Just not the kind of fun everyone else has.”  
  
Chad’s suddenly pressing a hand to Jensen’s forehead and fingers to Jensen’s throat. Jensen’s got half a mind to bite Chad’s hand for touching him when Chad says “Sh. Wait. Oh no. It doesn’t look good. Mr. Ackles, I regret to inform you of this, but you are dead inside. I sense no purpose of life in you, mon ami. No drive. No spark.”  
  
“He’s right you know,” Jared pipes in, looking overjoyed that someone is finally agreeing with him. “You’re more dead inside than I am. And I don’t even have a pulse.”  
  
“I don’t  _need_  a spark. That’s not even a real thing.”  
  
Chad grins. “Challenge accepted.”  
  
And just like that, Jensen’s got another person who’s attached themselves to him.  
  
\--  
  
Eight hours of sitting in a white room passes rather quickly when you’re stuck with the world’s chattiest ghost and chattiest boy. Even after eight hours, Jensen isn’t entirely sure that Chad’s all that real himself. And if he’s real, there’s no way he’s done half the shit he says has and is still a student at this school.  
  
Chad’s dragging Jensen out of detention, Jared trailing along behind them, Jensen listening to all the things they’re going to do, “As soon as we get something to eat.”  
  
The parking lot is empty when Chad karate-style kicks the school doors open, tossing his arm around Jensen’s shoulder, immediately comfortable with taking up Jensen’s personal space. A jeep pulls into the parking lot, burning rubber. Chad glances over his shoulder and groans, slumping against Jensen so hard he nearly drags Jensen down with his weight.  
  
“Damn woman, who gave her car keys? Who gave her a license?” He mutters darkly into Jensen’s shoulder, “She’s going to kill me someday.”  
  
“I heard that.” The jeep has pulled up beside the two boys and the ghost, creeping along with Chad’s resolute walking towards Jensen’s truck. “How was detention? I see you made a friend.”  
  
It’s not until the jeep jerks and pulls rather kamikaze to park right in front of them that Chad raises his head and whispers, “Don’t mention the driving skills if you want to live”, and then whips them both around to face the tiny brunette sitting in the front seat, wearing too-cool-for-you sunglasses.  
  
“Genevieve! Queen of my heart, light of my life!” Chad gesticulates wildly, acting partially inebriated with how he’s swaying and carrying on. “This is Jensen. We’re gonna go wreck shit because YOLO. Are the rest of those firecrackers still in my backseat?”  
  
“Like hell you are. Was one week of detention not enough for you?” Genevieve slides over to the passenger seat and opens the door, before scooting back to the driver’s seat. “We’ve got family dinner and a Chem project due on Monday morning. No more torturing the lunch ladies for you. Get in; or else you’re walking home, Murray.”  
  
The engine revs as she pounds on the gas, and Jensen thinks that walking might be the best idea if Chad wants to live to see tomorrow.  
  
Chad shrugs, “Yeah, Gen's the fuckin fun police, no idea why I keep her around.”  
  
“I’m right here, you asshole.” Genevieve, Gen, shoves her sunglasses back to sit against her ponytail. “Oh hey, it’s the kid that stole my seat in English. Hey, didn’t you kick Chris Kane’s ass? Nice work!”  
  
Jared cackles and Jensen flushes.  
  
“That’s what I said!” Chad opens the door to give Gen a high five, which transforms into an anatomically impossible handshake and some kind of gross hock’n’spit into the asphalt before Chad hops into the passenger seat.  
  
“If I introduce myself to you again, you gonna ignore me like last time?” Genevieve asks, staring Jensen down. “I’m kidding.” She smiles, transforming from a tomboy in ripped jeans to the prom queen, startling Jensen with the earnestness of her smile. “I can only imagine how much moving schools sucks and I didn’t exactly start off on the right foot. Besides, if I can put up with this grade A idiot,” she hooks a thumb towards Chad, who squawks indignantly, “I can deal with you. Welcome to the wolf pack, Jensen.”  
  
Chad howls obnoxiously loud, and Gen cracks up, smacking his shoulder and hitting the gas pedal by accident. The car lurches forward, Chad’s howl tapering off into a high pitched scream that has Jensen doubled over laughing. Chad flips a middle finger out the window at him and Gen floors out of the parking lot with a screech of tires.  
  
Jensen blinks and looks over at Jared. “What just happened?”  
  
Jared laughs. “You know, the social ineptitude would be almost endearing if it weren’t so stiflingly embarrassing.”  
  
\--  
  
Jensen has had friends. He has.  
  
So why he feels so utterly confused when Chad and Genevieve plop down next to him at lunch the following Monday is beyond him. Jared’s sitting across from Jensen, staring at the apple on Jensen’s tray and trying to move it, when Chad shoves a leg straight through Jared’s abdomen and plops himself down on the bench.  
  
“Afternoon, sir.” Chad winks, snatching Jensen’s animal cookies straight from his plate and going about a ceremony that involves dunking them in chocolate milk and then stirring them into his murky chocolate pudding.  
  
“Hey Jensen.” Gen scoots in right next to Jensen, bumping his knee with hers. “Oh, sorry, jittery.”  
  
“No-no number two with Genevieve: Never let her drink coffee.”  
  
“I’m taking five AP classes  _plus_  horse riding lessons, fuck you very much. What’s no-no number one?”  
  
“Lovely weather we’re having today, isn’t it?”  
  
“Chad I swear to god—“  
  
“No driving! Jeez, stop kicking me!”  
  
“No driving, what the hell? I’m a horseback rider, driving and steering is what I  _do_.”  
  
“Yeah, when it’s an animal, sure. A car? Not so much.”  
  
“Back me up here, Jensen, I’m being ganged up on.”  
  
“I take your abuse  _daily_ , Jensen gets to take  _my_  side this time.”  
  
“You had him on Saturday. It’s  _my_  turn to be the likeable charming one.”  
  
“You’re a horsegirl. Charming does not exist in your dork vocabulary.”  
  
“Oh fuck you—“  
  
“Horsegirl?” Both Jared and Jensen intone.  
  
“Horsegirl,” Chad says. “A term invented to describe the casual high school student who is obsessed with animals of the Equine nature. They own horses, ride horses, or want to be horses. Every group of friends has a horsegirl, Example A,” he gestures towards Gen, “and anyone who thinks differently is probably the horsegirl themselves.”  
  
“He likes to think he’s clever.” Gen sniffs primly. “But he doesn’t have fourteen dressage and racing trophies on his wall.”  
  
“Yeah, because I’ve got Life’s trophy. I’m  _cool_.”  
  
“Are not.”  
  
“Are too!”  
  
“Jensen, what do you think?” Gen asks, turning her eyes to Jensen.  
  
On the spot, Jensen blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “Why are you here?”  
  
They blink at him.  
  
“No really,” he presses, “I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t need to take me under your wing as your little social charity case. I’ve sat by myself for two months by this point. Don’t feel the need to go out of your way.”  
  
“That’s cute,” Gen says, nodding to Chad. “He thinks we’re trying to better his life.”  
  
“I hate to break it to you Jenny, but we’re about to cause all kinds of mayhem in your life that you may or may not be prepared for. And what’s worse, we’re not even doing it for charity reasons. We’re being six hundred and three percent selfish. Think of Game of Thrones, with less gratuitous sex, unfortunately. And instead of fighting for the crown we’re fighting for your undying pledge of friendship.”  
  
“Might be a blood bath, watch your back Murray.”  
  
“Oh, you can count on it Cortese.”  
  
“Okay,  _stop_.” Jensen raises his hands. “Let me get this straight: you guys  _want_  to sit with me?”  
  
Gen takes out her phone gravely. “Chad, I’m gonna call Guinness World Records. I think we may have found someone on this planet stupider than you. Yes we want to sit with you, Jensen.”  
  
“I…but…why?”  
  
“Do they need a reason, Jensen?” Jared asks. “I like them.”  
  
And apparently that settles that.  
  
\--  
  
“What’s it like being alive?” Jared asks.  
  
Suds cascade and splash as Jensen dumps the bucket of water over the front of his truck, snatching up the sponge and scrubbing careful circles over the white paint. It’s getting chilly in Singer, which apparently means rain, which also apparently means Jensen’s truck gets spattered with mud every time he drives to or from the house.  
  
Jensen shrugs as he washes, considering. “Bit of a loaded question, don’t you think? I don’t know what it feels like to be alive. I don’t consider it.”  
  
“I don’t get it,” Jared says from where he’s sitting on top of the car, reaching up to swipe at the occasional Spanish moss blowing gently in the breeze from the trees above his head.  
  
Despite cooler temperatures, the humidity still works as somewhat of a buffer between Jensen and the cold, so he doesn’t shiver too much when he strips off his shirt and climbs up further on the truck so he can get at the mud spattered windshield. He’s been at it for the last half an hour or so, and his arms are burning pleasantly with the generous use of elbow grease. “Well, what’s it like being dead?”  
  
“It’s like nothing. I can’t smell, taste, nada. I am here, existing, but I can’t participate.” Jared pauses for a moment, watching Jensen. “Chad was right though. You kind of are dead inside.”  
  
“Ass.” Jensen squirts the hose briefly in Jared’s direction, not that it has any effect on him. The conveyed sentiment is what counts.  
  
“You are! You don’t like anything,” Jared points out.  
  
“That’s not true.” Jensen picks at a cemented amount of bug carcass on the windshield. He does like things. He likes lots of things. But on the spot, he’s unable to think of said things so he clamps his lips shut and glares at Jared, who’s looking rather pleased with himself.  
  
“You want to prove there’s an actual heart in that chest of yours Tin-Man? Then give yourself the benefit of the doubt.” Jared slides off the hood and lands with both feet on the ground. “Hang out with them.”  
  
“Why are you pushing this?” Jensen picks up the hose and rinses down the rest of the truck, the pleasant exhaustion of labor now a nuisance, coupled with Jared’s nagging.  
  
Jared has the gall to look slightly sheepish, and Jensen’s eyes widen. “Are you thinking this is your unfinished business? This? Making sure I get friends?”  
  
“No one else is exactly throwing themselves at you for the opportunity. You’re kind of a bitter teaspoon to swallow,” Jared admits, not even looking ashamed for the insult.  
  
“Thanks.” It’s the icing on the cake when a dead person tells you just how lifeless you are.  
  
“Don’t act like you’re not perfectly aware of it. Look. We’re here. I’m here, not by choice. I can’t remember a single thing about my past that actually gives me a clue as to why I’m stuck here, so why don’t we just…help you? I mean, that has to be the reason I couldn’t be exorcised, right? You’re my unfinished business. It was meant to be.”  
  
“Meant to be.” Jensen grabs the towel and begins to dry off the truck.  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
“Has anyone told you you could be a greeting card writer? Because you really do have a talent,” Jensen snarks, wiping down the rest of the truck. God, but Jared’s annoying. Annoying and pushy and hopeful and determined and full of so many, many qualities that Jensen finds are inconvenient to him in every sense of the word. And not even that, but Jared seems to genuinely enjoy his company—not that he has much of a choice in the matter—but Jared is always starting conversations, asking questions, looking at Jensen like a puppy waiting for its treat for being a good dog. It’s unnerving, the attention. Naturally, Jensen’s got to do what he can to get out from under it. “So we’re clear, I’m only doing this so you don’t have to be around anymore.”  
  
“Fine with me,” Jared agrees, cheery and stubborn about the point. They stare each other down over the hood of the truck, but it’s Jensen that looks away with a roll of his eyes, because he knows Jared will keep staring and likely not stop until the sun rises and falls again. Because that’s apparently what he did before Jensen could see him, too.  
  
“So, what, sleepovers and hair braiding with Horsegirl and Spazzboy is supposed to help you move on?”  
  
“You got any brighter ideas, Tin-Man?” Jared asks.  
  
Jensen grumbles something incoherent and Jared responds by throwing a bucket of suds over his head.  
  
\--  
  
“It’s called a quesorito.”  
  
“And it’s exactly what it sounds like.”  
  
Jensen turns over the gigantic foil covered shape placed into his hands by Chad all of fifteen seconds ago with the gentlest care, as if it were a newborn as opposed to a significantly heavy food item. “A burrito made from a quesadilla?”  
  
“What’s with the cynical tone? Try it.”  
  
Three days after detention and Jensen is sitting in a place called ‘The Wrap Shack’, an assorted fusion cuisine that mixes Creole with Tex-Mex. According to Chad, the only reason it’s still open is because he and Gen make it a point to go there at least once a week. The whole ‘try to make friends’ thing isn’t hard, per se, mostly because Chad and Gen do most of the talking, but Jensen’s not exactly going through torture, either, sitting here with them.  
  
Jensen takes a bite, and goddamn, it  _is_  good. Beans, salsa, avocado, rice, steak, gooey melted cheese and tortilla. He barely gets through a third of the quesorito and he’s stuffed full, tossing it down on his plate and promising to save it for later.  
  
Meanwhile, Gen keeps scarfing down her quesorito like it’s going out of style. Chad looks simultaneously disgusted and fascinated.  
  
“She once ate two in one sitting,” Chad explains. “I’m always baffled, I never know where it all goes. She’s  _tiny_.”  
  
“Admit it, you’re jealous,” Gen demands around a mouthful of quesorito.  
  
“I won’t be when your stomach distends and you die at the table,” Chad responds, leaning on both elbows against the table towards Gen.  
  
Genevieve licks at the lip gloss of salsa and refried beans spread all over her mouth, and Jensen notices Chad’s eyes flick downwards towards her mouth, Chad’s own mouth just going a bit slack jawed at the movement.  
  
“Did you see that?” Jared exclaims. “Holy crap. They’re not best friends at all. Or if they are, they shouldn’t be. He  _likes_  her.”  
  
Jensen glances over and raises his eyebrows. So?  
  
“They need to date,” Jared states, like it’s the simplest solution in the world. “They need to date right  _now_. Ask Chad how long he’s liked her.”  
  
Like hell Jensen’s doing that. He barely knows these people, he can’t just pry. And why does this matter to Jared so much in the first place?  
  
But then he glances back over to see Gen’s cheeks tinge slightly pink as she gets up to ask the waitress for more napkins. Jensen sits there, awkwardly, for a moment, gauging what subject to bring up to Chad, hit with the realization that he knows nothing about Chad, knows nothing about how to make friends in general.  
  
So he goes for Jared’s chosen topic, because it’s the easiest, and Jensen really hates having to make conversation.  
  
“You and Gen…you’re dating?” Jensen asks slyly, ignoring Jared’s encouraging thumbs up.  
  
Chad looks like a kid caught in the act of stealing from the cookie jar. “What? No! No, why would you think that? She’s like my little sister. And I’m not dating my little sister. That’s incest. I don’t do incest, no matter how hot my sister may be.”  
  
“You think she’s hot?” Gotcha, Jensen thinks.  
  
“I mean, she’s  _Gen_. I grew up with her. She’s seen me naked more times than I care to discuss, and all in situations that were the farthest thing from sexual you could ever think of. She’s my best friend, and I’d take a bullet for that little firecracker, but she’s…”  
  
“She’s what?”  
  
Chad shrugs. “She’s Gen. I can’t really think of a better explanation than that.”  
  
“Are you not the ladies man you claim to be?” Jensen shoots back.  
  
“Fuck you, I am a ladies man! Which is why I play the field. No settling down, not when I’m in my prime. And certainly no pandering to ladies not interested in The Chad.”  
  
“Ah, so that’s it.” Jared is peering at Chad, looking fascinated. “He’s afraid she’ll turn him down. Dude’s got it bad.”  
  
“I could talk to her, you know,” Jensen finds himself offering.  
  
“You think?” Chad visibly perks up. “I mean. Don’t stress it. Girls like Gen, they’re pretty high maintenance. Plus, Gen doesn’t really date.”  
  
“Or maybe she doesn’t date because she’s waiting for the right person to ask her out.”  
  
“You think so?” Chad is all devil may care in the way he leans back in his seat, legs spread wide as the Grand Canyon, but the hopeful intonation of his voice almost makes Jensen feel sorry for him. Jared’s right. Dude does have it bad.  
  
“I’ll see what I can do.” Jensen pointedly ignores Jared’s overenthusiastic smile, the smile that could part the red sea, the power of God in the Ark of the Covenant, powerful and terrifying and bright enough to melt your face off if you look at it.  
  
Jensen makes it a point on a daily basis of not looking at it. Still, there’s no physical way to tune out Jared’s voice.  
  
“That was nice of you,” Jared observes, kicking up one leg to cross over the other. “Does it feel good? Being nice? Or are you going to have to go kick some puppies until you’re back to normal?”  
  
Whatever normal is, it sure isn’t this, that’s for sure. Jensen’s got ninety nine problems and they’re all the dead kid following him around and wanting him to make friends.  
  
This whole ‘caring about people’ thing is proving to be more exhausting and painstaking than Jensen had previously thought it would be, and already he can feel the headache building behind his eyes, acute pressure bordering on outright pain.  
  
His body seems to have adapted a physical reaction to interaction with people other than his family. There’s most likely a rash starting on his arms, and a self-inflicted brain tumor brought on by exposure to socializing.  
  
“I’ve got to say, Jensen. You’re almost likeable with these two. Look at you go!” Elbows plant themselves in Jensen’s field of vision as Jared leans forward now, seemingly pleased with the opportunity of talking to Jensen without Jensen having the option of walking away.  
  
He’s just considering creating a random excuse for a getaway when he realizes that Chad’s staring at him, nose scrunched.  
  
“Dude, what are you glaring at?”  
  
“Yeah Jensen, what are you glaring at?” Jared croons.  
  
“Nothing. Just remembered I’ve got a shitload of homework,” Jensen replies, wishing like hell he could aim a kick at Jared under the table.  
  
Gen saunters back with a plate of steaming fried pickles balanced on the tips of her fingers. She puts the plate in front of her, gently creases and places a napkin on her lap, smiling demurely at them, and promptly begins to demolish the plate.  
  
“Unbelievable.” Jared gapes.  
  
“That’s my girl.” Chad grins.  
  
\--  
  
So Jensen’s trying this whole ‘be nice and tolerant’ thing, he really is.  
  
Be that as it may, Jared’s not really getting any less annoying, especially now that he can talk, and Jensen can no longer fake ignoring because “I  _know_  you can see me Jensen, I’m not stupid.”  
  
He exists rather consistently as the unending commentary to Jensen’s life, witty quips here and there that both grudgingly entertain Jensen and drive him crackers. And the thing is, Jared never  _leaves_. He’s always there when Jensen is just considering how nice it would be to have peace and quiet, taking up Jensen’s space and time with his rambling and excitement for everything under the freaking sun.  
  
Not to mention this weird idea that he and Jared, a dead kid, an actual floating and talking  _dead kid_ , are friends. That’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s not torturous, but it is annoying at times--Jared treating Jensen like they’re somehow in the same position, both normal teenagers dealing with normal problems.  
  
Still, he’s funny sometimes. At least Jensen can look forward to that.  
  
Christmas comes, Donna swinging out a fantastic and compact meal meant to effectively fill Jensen until the New Year arrives. Present haul is small this year, it always is, but Donna does her best. Jensen gets brand new state of the art headphones.  
  
Everything’s fine and dandy. They eat dinner and Jared stands halfway in the centerpiece, convinced that if he walks through the food he’ll be able to taste it. Mackenzie is chatting about school and Jensen can feel his stomach stretching from the effort of keeping all his food in when Donna’s phone rings in her pocket.  
  
“Hello?” She laughs, as Mackenzie shoves a green bean straight up her nose in some random impersonation that Jensen lost track of. Her expression sobers up in a second, and it hits Jensen like a sack of bricks dropping on his head.  
  
“Merry Christmas to you too, Alan,” Donna says, her tone clipped.  
  
“Alan?” Jared intones.  
  
“Daddy?!” Mac leaps up from the table, grabbing for the phone. “I want to talk to Daddy!”  
  
She hands the phone to Mac, who immediately glues it to her ear and walks into the kitchen with it, chattering away animatedly, leaving Jensen and his Mom in silence, Jared still standing in the center of the table. Jensen’s knuckles are white as he grips his knife and fork, trying not to grab his plate and send it shattering against the wall.  
  
Donna frets for a moment, “Jensen…”  
  
“Did you tell him to call?” Jensen asks flatly, staring at the gravy.  
  
“I would never—“  
  
“Did you tell him. To. Call.” Jensen seethes.  
  
“Yes,” Donna breathes.  
  
“I’m not talking to him,” Jensen states, matter of fact, getting up from the table. “And if you think that ambushing me like this on Christmas of all things is going to somehow make it acceptable, don’t expect me to talk to you either.”  
  
“Jensen, he’s your Dad. He misses you.”  
  
“Alright, seriously, do you hear yourself right now?” Jensen rounds on his Mother. “Do you know how desperate and pathetic you sound, Mom? He doesn’t miss me. He doesn’t miss any of us. He didn’t care about us in the first place, it’s the reason why he left, goddammit!”  
  
It’s like there’s a volcano built straight into Jensen’s chest suddenly gushing forth hot acidic ash. Donna blinks, but refuses to back down.  
  
“I left him, Jensen, don’t make your father out to be some Big Bad Wolf. I took you out of that situation.”  
  
“That’s right, you did!” Jensen shouts. “You took me out of there, you took Dad away from me, and dragged Mac and I around the country our whole lives in some desperate search to replace him with work, don’t pretend you didn’t. Quit trying to make up for your shitty parenting skills by forcing Dad on me, alright?”  
  
“Jensen!” Jared looks shocked, enraged.  
  
Donna bites her trembling lip and sighs. “Alright, Jensen. I’ll tell your Dad you’re feeling sick. You two can talk another time.”  
  
If she’s crying, Jensen’s up the stairs too fast to hear her.  
  
Jared pops up through the floor like a jack-in-the-box, glaring. “What is wrong with you?”  
  
“Don’t start on me, now, Jared,” Jensen groans, slamming his door. “Buzz off.”  
  
“You were mean to your mom. Why were you mean?”  
  
“You were right there, you saw what she did!”  
  
“What I saw was a woman trying to keep her family together. She’s just trying to give you something that you don’t have. I mean I get it if your Dad’s a dick, I do. But you don’t need to take that out on  _her_.”  
  
“Fine.” Jensen rolls his eyes. “I let her be, didn’t I?”  
  
“That’s beside the point!” Jared yells, suddenly very frustrated. “Stop being a shit to your Mom!”  
  
“Excuse me?” Jensen stares incredulously.  
  
“You heard me. You’re rude to your Mother. And I don’t like it.”  
  
“What do you know about dealing with Mom’s? You don’t have a Mom, you don’t even remember her!”  
  
The remark is supposed to upset Jared enough that he leaves, but apparently the kid is made of something other than vapor and over excitable emotions.  
  
“I’m not joking around here, Jensen. I’m saying be nice to your Mom.”  
  
“And I’m saying you’re not the boss of me, so kindly fuck off! Or I’ll make you!”  
  
Jared pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look, I get that things are complicated with your Dad. But you’ve really got to just…try and have overall greater empathy with people, okay? You don’t need to take out your anger at him on the rest of the world, okay?”  
  
“Shut. The fuck. Up,” Jensen spits, feeling the poisonous lava frothing inside of him again. “You have no right. You’re dead. You don’t have a body, or a pulse, so therefore you have no opinion which matters, so just shut. Up. Or I swear to God I’ll--”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I know you can light my bathtub on fire, send me straight to the deepest pits of hell, yada yada yada but you know what? I may be dead, but I am a dead person. A person, Jensen. I have feelings and thoughts and sensitivities and I deserve to be treated just as you would treat Gen or Chad, okay?  
  
“All I’m saying is that you don’t know me, so don’t even try to pretend like you do.” Jensen hunches his shoulders, walking away from Jared. “You don’t know me; you don’t get to tell me what’s good for my emotional health.”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know you?” Jared zooms and brakes right in front of Jensen, towering a good few inches over Jensen in a way that would be completely intimidating if Jared weren’t so lean. “How is it that I know your class schedule better than you do? Or that you have to eat your cereal within exactly three minutes of pouring the milk in it, or you throw it away. I know you, Jensen, like it or not. I live with you, I follow you around, that’s just the way it is. I know that you sleep on the left side of the bed but somehow always end up on the right side by morning. I know that no matter how much you don’t want to listen to a certain song, you will hear it all the way through because you pick every song on those stupid playlists for a reason, and you refuse to usurp that reason. And I know that you take all your inner man pain out on your Mom because you have this obsessive self fulfilling prophecy that you’re becoming exactly like your Dad. And I know that until you start respecting your mom, you’re not going to do anything but continue to self fulfill.”  
  
Jared stops, chest heaving slightly, looking surprised that he had said that in one rush, like the dam wasn’t supposed to burst just so.  
  
There’s no telling how Jared knows all that stuff. It comes as a shock, because Jensen’s always been more than aware of Jared’s tendency to watch his every move, but Jensen didn’t think Jared cared enough to take note of things, let alone commit them to memory.  
  
It isn’t that Jared doesn’t know Jensen. Jensen doesn’t know Jared.  
  
“Look I’m…” Jensen tries to fish around for other word substitutes, but comes up with nothing. “I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean to treat you inferior it just. It happened. I’ve never had someone in my life privy to everything the way you are, and it’s a lot to take in. It’s always been easier to just not tell people about myself, not letting them know me. So having someone like you around is…difficult. For me. Because I’m kind of an asshole.”  
  
Jared huffs half a laugh. “You can say that again. And apology accepted. But from now on…if you’re not going to be nice to me, can you at least be nice to your Mom? She’s a lot nicer than you make her out to be. Plus, she loves you.”  
  
“I know.” And deep down, Jensen does. He sinks down onto the mattress, laughing hollowly. “Merry Christmas.”  
  
Jared’s mouth twists. “Look man, can we just. Partners?”  
  
“Partners?” Jensen asks skeptically.  
  
“The only way I’m ever going to figure out my Unfinished Business and move on is if you help me. If we help each other. And we can’t do that if you think I’m a meddling dumb shit, or if you’re being an impolite punk ass. No more fighting. You and me? We’re on the same team, got it?”  
  
Jared holds out a hand, the iconography of the gesture enough to make Jensen rise, looking Jared square in the eye.  
  
Jensen falls to his knees when he touches Jared’s hand, weakened by the momentary blizzard that rushes through him when he swipes his hand through Jared’s. He doesn’t miss the somewhat self satisfied smirk Jared gives, like this somehow makes them even after Jensen was a dick.  
  
He’s got to admit, it kind of does.


	8. Chapter 8

 

“Jensen.”  
  
“Jensen.”  
  
“ _Jensen_.”  
  
“What?” Jensen groans into the pillow, raising his head.  
  
Jared’s sitting on the edge of the bed, looking nervous.  
  
“So…you sleep at night.”  
  
Jensen’s eyes widen. “You’re right Jared. I  _do_  sleep at night. Amazing.”  
  
“Shut up, you know what I mean. I was…when you sleep, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I sleep.”  
  
“But you don’t sleep. Not technically. You just vanish.”  
  
“You know what I mean!” Jared snaps, then retreats. “Okay so like…watching you sleep is oh so romantic and all, but I’m kind of…bored?”  
  
“Bored.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Bored?”  
  
“Oh my god, you heard me! I’m bored! And…and I need entertainment.”  
  
“So what are you suggesting?”  
  
“Could you maybe go to the store tomorrow and get me a few movies? I feel like I may have missed out on some of the good ones. Past tenants haven’t had very good taste.” His nose crinkles.  
  
“Yeah. Okay. Whatever. Can I sleep now?”  
  
“Promise you’ll get me movies?”  
  
“Jesus. I promise.”  
  
“Tomorrow?”  
  
“YES.”  
  
“Excellent. Thank you.”  
  
“Goodnight, Jared.”  
  
….  
  
….  
  
…  
  
“….Are you still awake?”  
  
“I said  _goodnight_ , Jared.”  
  
\--  
  
The local video store stands like a relic, a byproduct of the nineties with vintage posters and discount memorabilia that begs a nostalgia which is lost on Jensen. It’d probably be less trouble to just sign up for Netflix, but Jensen’s not about to try and teach a ghost how to use the internet. So he treks up and down the aisles searching for titles he thinks Jared will like.  
  
Jared’s funny, right? Probably likes comedy, and like any teenaged boy, a little bit of horror. Despite not really caring what Jared thinks of Jensen’s movie selections, he can’t help but figure there should be something in there that is at least…well…up Jared’s alley in turns of taste.  
  
Alright. Horror. Titles blur into a meaningless mess of b horror movies.  _The Human Centipede I and II_ ,  _Dracula_ ,  _The Tingler_ , Jensen’s up to his elbows in the goods.  
  
 _13 Ghosts of Halloween_  jumps out at him, inspiration striking Jensen. Oh this is perfect. This is absolutely goddamn  _perfect_.  
  
He spends a total of thirty seven dollars and forty three cents at the counter, the bare residual of birthday money given by relatives over the years. He regrets not a single purchase.  
  
\--  
  
The bag of DVDs plops down, spilling out onto the floor. Jared walks over, bending over to read the various titles in stark horror styled font.  
  
He looks up, eyes narrowed.  
  
“You didn’t.”  
  
Jensen runs over to the TV before Jared has a chance to stop him, shoving a DVD into the player and waiting for the opening credits to start.  
  
Basic eighties electronic drums kick in with a funky beat that Jensen is sure to amplify through the whole house. Bass pumping, the opening lyrics present a verse that Jared only squints further at, standing in the very center of the living room, completely unimpressed.  
  
“Very funny, Jensen.”  
  
“Don’t fight it, Jared.”  
  
“I am going to throttle you. I asked for entertainment! This is—“  
  
“Who you gonna call?” Jensen enunciates along with the lyrics, as the opening credits of Ghostbusters takes over for him.  
  
Jared’s speechless, but Jensen takes the fact that he sits down on the couch to watch the film as a good thing.  
  
\--  
  
Three or so hours later they’ve pushed through  _Ghostbusters I and II_  and are now making headway through the  _Poltergeist_  series. The smell of hot buttered popcorn fills the living room and the couch cushions are plush and warm from Jensen sprawling out on him, Jared leaning back against the armrest on the floor.  
  
They’re watching a man pull the flesh off his face in the mirror and Jared is laughing his head off, head thrown back in a deep bark that ricochets around the living room, resounding in Jensen’s ears.  
  
Mackenzie wandered into the room about half an hour ago, mismatched socked feet shoved against Jensen’s leg in an effort for warmth. The tips of her fingers dangle off the couch, and every time she shifts she’s brushing the hair at the nape of Jared’s neck; she doesn’t appear to feel a thing.  
  
Donna comes in soon after, probably drawn by the cinematic screams making the TV speakers buzz as they reach their decibel max.  
  
“I forgot about that.” Her hand is shy as she places it on Jensen’s shoulder. “This was Josh’s favorite when you two were little. Scared the pants off of him, but it was his favorite.”  
  
She doesn’t move to sit down and Jensen doesn’t shrug her hand off, and just like that they’ve entered some sort of parley, an end to a fight that Jensen now feels stupid for picking. Her presence, her contact, her close proximity is something that normally Jensen would feel uncomfortable with, but he’s lucid enough in the dark room with its flickering television to feel calm in his mother’s presence. For the time being, at least, he no longer wants to tear into her for things he’s always known she can’t control. And for now that’s enough.  
  
A typical day in the life of Jensen Ackles begins and ends with exhaustion, which leads to irritability which leads to low tolerance for anything beyond sleeping and breathing which leads to pretty much every miserable circumstance he’s ever gotten himself into. That being said, the exhaustion fades out and the irritation evaporates, hot sweat cooling on his tar skin.  
  
He’s calm. And that’s weird. He’d even go so far as to say he’s enjoying himself. That’s weirder.  
  
“Don’t overthink it.” Jared’s neck cranes back till he’s halfway through Mackenzie’s thigh. “She knows you’ll apologize in your own time.”  
  
Jensen presses his lips thin, letting Jared know that he wasn’t over thinking anything, thank you very much, but Jared’s already turned back to the screen.  
  
He’s almost...likeable, when he’s not talking. Right now is a chatterless frequency of the Jared-radio that Jensen has become so accustomed to over the weeks. Jared is so often looking at Jensen himself, meaning Jensen rarely gets to return the favor in a manner that doesn’t constitute a glare, so now he looks. Purely objective, noting the legs bunched up to his chest in a hairpin curve, chin resting on his right knee and bangs twitching as he throws his head back on occasion to laugh at a cheesy special effect.  
  
Jared’s really getting a kick out of the ghost movies. Jensen did something good. For the first time in maybe forever, he finally did something right.  
  
The notion settles, warm subcutaneous honey softening the stiff casing which so often holds him still; a statue; a lifeless corpse.  
  
He decides to let it linger.  
  
  
\--  
  
Jensen begins working on playlist #57.  
  
Building a playlist is more or less the singular task in life that Jensen actually applies himself to with passion, taking time and care to select each track, order it, and copy the disk. He usually listens to them on his iPod, but each playlist gets a CD copy just in case, usually made decadent by thick black sharpie in Jensen’s handwriting.  
  
He likes this part the best, though, potential playlist songs aloud in his room, deciding which ones are worthy. Music often filters in and out of Jensen’s head like water does cells, like air does lungs, by the minute and naturally. But it takes a long time for him to select a song for a playlist, the perfect trifecta of music plus lyrics plus overall sound that he has to let marinate, taste and savor as if it were fine wine.  
  
#57 doesn’t have a name quite yet. Usually he starts out with a theme in mind, some overarching feeling that he can encapsulate in twelve to sixteen tracks and a snappy title. But #57’s a fickle one. He switches between mournful nineties punk to crappy eighties power ballads and nothing’s really sticking. Which is strange. Jensen’s usually in a mood enough to decide how he feels about a playlist, or how he wants a playlist to make him feel. If there’s one thing that has never let him down, it’s that. There will always be a song able to capture any rampant emotion Jensen never feels the need to voice.  
  
Desk chair squeaking as he spins in it, reclining back and staring at the ceiling, Jensen bats at the mouse and skips to the next track in his endless music library.  
  
This is Jensen’s domicile, Jensen’s complete and utter nirvana. Coincidentally, it is also the one time Jared feels uninclined to speak. Rather, he sits, and listens with Jensen, watches in silence as Jensen drags track after track into the playlist and rearranges.  
  
Foo Fighters. Piano, strings in the back, an ounce of percussion in the musical break, and raspy lyrics that stink of nostalgia. It’s a beautiful piece of music, poetic and reflective. But it is a story about someone who is not Jensen, a representation of an emotion that puzzles, a color Jensen is unable to see. He lifts his finger for the skip button.  
  
“I like that one,” Jared speaks from the corner of the room.  
  
Jensen blinks, almost startled by the sound of Jared speaking. Jensen’s never once had to tell Jared to shut up during making playlists; it just sort of became an unspoken agreement. He’s not entirely sure where these agreements started, but they trade off, school kids swapping fruit snacks for goldfish at lunch time. Jared promises not to burst through the television screen and crawl out like the girl from  _The Ring_ , Jensen promises not to sing the Ghostbusters theme song all the way from the house to school. Jensen brings Jared movies, and Jared leaves Jensen alone when he makes playlists.  
  
He could tell Jared to fuck off, as is often the protocol for every time Jared speaks.  
  
Instead, he plays the song again, shrugs, and drags it to the playlist fifty seven folder.  
  
Jared smiles.  
  
\--  
  
Gloomy January droops into February, and Playlist #57 takes shape as this outlandish hodgepodge of mixed instrumentals and contemporary music all tied together with a singular musical motif. It’s not uncommon that he asks Jared for his input, whether or not Jared likes a certain track or a certain singer. Eventually Jared always comes back to the same type of music.  
  
Jensen can’t really blame him. The kid’s got taste.  
  
“You like piano, don’t you?” Jensen asks, browsing through his music files for one final track. “The day we moved in. You were playing. There’s one in the house, isn’t there? Where?”  
  
“Upstairs attic.” Jared’s lying back on Jensen’s bed, staring up at the ceiling, lazy afternoon dust drifting through him, casting odd shadows on his form, a mirage or scintillation of vapor. Four in the morning has a particular kind of scent to it in this room, sharp and brisk, fresh loamy soil and damp grass drifting through the window on slanted moonbeams. Despite the humidity, it’s cool enough to have the window open, and Jensen sucks in those moonbeams, driving fatigue further back as he questions Jared.  
  
“And you don’t play anymore because?”  
  
“It’s a lot less fun to play when no one’s there to scream in terror because they have no idea who’s jamming on the piano,” Jared replies, mouth quirking. “Plus. I have to be in the right mood to play.”  
  
“Mm? What kind of mood is that?”  
  
“The same kind of mood you’re in when you work on your playlists.” Jared rolls to his side, tipping his head in Jensen’s direction. “Quiet. Reflective. Lonely.”  
  
“Okay, hold up.” Jensen digs his elbows into the tops of his kneecaps as he leans forward. “Are you saying that I make playlists because I’m lonely? You’re out of your mind.”  
  
“I’m saying that music fills the spaces in between,” Jared speaks gently, and upon an eyebrow raise from Jensen, he rolls his eyes. “It’s something calming and relative that can evoke emotion, make things not as bleak. I play piano when there’s nobody living here. It helps. Because I  _am_  lonely. Sometimes it feels like I wait forever before someone else moves in. Forever is a long time. I’ve got to fill the space.”  
  
Forever is also subjective, but Jensen’s not bringing that up. They’ve talked the timeline of Jared’s death into the ground by this point, and they can’t seem to figure out just how old Jared is and when he died. He just shrugs easily, taking in more moonbeams.  
  
“No offense, dude, but I’m not lonely. I just happen to like not having anybody else around.”  
  
“Why do you make the playlists, then?”  
  
“So I don’t have to be alone with myself,” Jensen says simply, wishing he weren’t speaking about this anymore but feeling necessarily inclined. There’s a kind of trick Jared pulls on him, reverse psychology or some bullshit that always makes Jensen talk more than he actually wants to. Mostly it’s because they talk a lot, talk about everything and most anything, mundane facts to personal quirks and by the time Jared gets around to asking deep questions, Jensen’s so loose with the mere idea of talking that he doesn’t hesitate.  
  
It’s becoming a problem. The only good thing to come out of this--morbid as it is--is that Jared’s dead. He has no one to tell, no one to gossip with, and unless he plans to start utilizing the alphabet magnets on the fridge downstairs to get in contact with his Mom, Jensen may as well talk.  
  
“What’s so bad about being alone with yourself?” Jared swings an arm out, sends a pencil skittering across the floor. “How’s that bad?”  
  
Because, Jensen thinks, because I suck. Because being alone means I can’t bother anyone but I only bother myself. Because it’s inadequacies upon inadequacies, piling higher and higher in a crisscross tower of Jenga and one wrong move and the whole thing comes crumbling down. Because every single bit of energy spent on making myself durable will be shot to shit because in the end I am weak and unstable and there is no reason to stick around when all I do is fall down.  
  
At this point in time, there are a fair amount of things Jensen will tell Jared. Not this, though. How shitty Jensen really is is something for Jensen to know, and nobody to ever find out.  
  
“Because. It’s just better that way. The music just keeps me from being bored.”  
  
Which is true, in part.  
  
Though sometimes, he thinks that the music is all that’s keeping him alive, notes like heartbeats, an EKG that measures the minimal amount of effort he has to make to be considered living.  
  
He’s not sure what’s more troubling: that he is perfectly aware he’s like that, or that he can’t really find it in him to care.  
  
\--  
  
Jensen’s just gotten off volunteer work at the library on a Friday evening when he sees Genevieve and Chad leaning back against his truck. He stops, casting a sidelong glance at Jared, who shrugs. “What’s going on?”  
  
“Initiation. Hazing.” Gen grins. “Got any plans tonight?”  
  
“Well I--”  
  
“Great! We already called your mom—stole her number from your phone—and she said she’d be more than happy to let you hang out for one night.” Gen pushes off the truck and throws an arm about his shoulder, tiptoeing to reach.  
  
“So get in loser! We’re going on a field trip!” Chad shouts, full on Valley Girl accent, slapping the side of the car.  
  
“With my own truck? Isn’t this abduction?”  
  
“It’s extortion, really. Not that we have dirt on you, but I’m sure if I dug far enough I could pull out something worthy of blackmailing Jensen Ackles into hanging out with us.” Chad rolls his eyes when Jensen doesn’t budge. “We’ll pay for gas, and take you out for dinner, too.”  
  
“I could say no, you know,” Jensen says, glancing over at Jared, who’s already gliding over to the truck excitedly.  
  
“Fine, we’re still taking your truck,” Chad reasons.  
  
They’re crazy, the lot of them.  
  
Jensen gets into the truck anyhow.  
  
\--  
  
It’s his second trip to New Orleans, and Jensen marvels at the difference in circumstances between this time and the last. They’d burned up the last of the sunlight stuffing their faces in the Singer Diner, and it’s with night on their heels that the trio (plus ghost) heads out onto the 10, driving over the swamps and into the city. They park on a random side street in the Garden District, walking by houses that are not so different from the Harris Estate in terms of style, and it’s through street lamps and Chad’s ‘impressive navigation skills’ that they wander upon a large brick wall that stretches the entire length of a block. Vines and small bushes protrude from cracks in the walls, in between the crevices of graves. It’s funny, how life bursts forth from places so filled with death.  
  
Jensen balls further into his hoodie; the air in the graveyard is damp, but still cool enough that he’s shivering, not to mention that it’s a graveyard and graveyards have and always will be creepy.  
  
The gate, black and wrought iron and reading “Louisiana Cemetery No. 1”, creaks when Chad nudges it open with his foot.  
  
“Gen and I have been coming here for a year now.” Chad explains, “It’s our favorite spot. They say they lock the cemetery, but the padlock is always undone, and as long as we don’t start any hooliganry, we’ll be fine.”  
  
“Which means you won’t be able to streak, Jensen, sorry.” Gen jokes, looping her arm through Chad’s as they push through the gate and slip into the darkness.  
  
“Whoa,” Jared says behind him, close.  
  
“Is this a joke?” Jensen asks to the open space.  
  
“This, dear Jensen, is tradition,” Gen calls softly, somewhere amongst the fog. Jensen shivers, her voice is moving quickly.  
  
The asphalt path they’re on branches off into small side paths and smaller spaces, but the graveyard itself is absolutely crammed. If there is a maintenance team that’s supposed to be in charge of upkeep around here, they’re either terrible at their job or long ago stopped trying to do it correctly; the graves are worn, marble and concrete sporting black smudges of weather wear and water damage, engravings less prominent, nearly invisible in the darkness. For every gravestone there are about twelve mausoleums, the majority of them taller than even Jared, large and sinister, like tiny houses.  
  
It’s equal parts fascinating and eerie. For such a small graveyard, there’s a ton of graves and mausoleums and tombs crowded together, grass and vines growing rampant over each of them.  
  
“Do you think I’m in here?” Jared asks quietly, the edges of him mixing in the night fog, the two grays swirling together so Jared’s more cloud than boy in this moment. He treks ahead of Jensen, hands in his pockets. “Buried, I mean? Looks like most of these people died within the early 1900’s, but there’s a few…I mean, it’s possible right?”  
  
Jensen shrugs absently, it’s hardly a possibility at all, but Jared looks hopeful and takes off, traipsing over to the nearest marble slab with letters engraved on it.  
  
“Don’t go wandering off, and watch for spooks.” Chad appears out of nowhere, grinning, shoving a flashlight into Jensen’s hand, with his own shoved ominously under his chin, highlighting the prominent features of his face while throwing the rest in shadow. “They say if you’re quiet enough, you’ll see a ghost wandering in between the graveyard sites.”  
  
“Ooooooooo,” Gen tacks on, breaking off into a giggle and smacking Chad’s arm.  
  
Jared rolls his eyes, smirking, and Jensen does smile at that one. “Should I rattle my chains for good measure or…”  
  
“I thought the whole plan was to get me friends, not scare them off,” Jensen whispers.  
  
“I can multi-task.” Jared grins, before going off and examining another tomb, and Jensen jogs to keep up with his unlikely friends.  
  
According to the tradition of the Cortese-Michael-Murray-Recently-Added-Ackles-Graveyard walk, they spend the next hour or so walking among the graves, flashlights tucked low and voices tucked lower as they whisper and examine the creepiest of the mausoleums. It’s somewhat of a scavenger hunt, points to who could find the earliest burial dates (Chad takes the crown with 1834), the youngest deaths, the oldest deaths, the most unfortunate names, the most people crammed into one tomb. Jensen isn’t even aware that he’s neck and neck with Gen for points until Chad’s cursing up a storm and calling ‘yellow card’, which doesn’t even make sense (“We’re not playing Soccer, dumbass!”), but it’s a Friday night and Jensen’s doing something that doesn’t involve sitting in his room or talking strictly to dead people.  
  
It’s the strangest field trip he’s ever been a part of, and it’s somehow kind of the greatest. Chad’s an idiot and Gen’s a sweetheart and together they’re a crackup, and somehow along the way Jensen finds himself muffling his laughter on more than one occasion.  
  
Jared joins after a while, not that he was ever far behind, and though he smiles, Jensen notices tightness around the edges of his eyes, disappointment.  
He must have really hoped he would find his grave there.  
  
The four of them are in the farthest corner of the cemetery, seemingly finished with their scavenger hunt, when Chad lifts the pack of cigarettes from his pocket with a sly smile. “Anyone got a light?”  
  
“Nah, I’m good.” Jensen shakes his head.  
  
“What? Too much of a pussy to suck down a deathstick?”  
  
“My Dad used to smoke.” Jensen shrugs non-committal. “It’s always turned me off.”  
  
“Oh, there’s a story here, I can tell.” Gen hops onto a tomb of one Silas Brown, died 1876, and crosses her legs, her oversized sweater (Chad’s, Jensen suspects), covering her legs almost entirely. Chad hops up next to her, and neither of them seem disturbed by the fact that they’re sitting on some dead guy.  
  
“You gonna spill the beans, Jenny?”  
  
“Not really any beans to spill. My old man was just an asshole who smoked, so the hobby has never had much appeal for me?”  
  
“Why was he an asshole?” Jensen knows Gen well enough by now to hear the genuine tone of her voice, as she too lifts a cig from Chad’s pack, snagging a lighter from her pocket. Her dark hair falls in her face as she bends over the cigarette, lighting and taking a puff, careful to blow the smoke away from Jensen. “I mean…he didn’t ever…”  
  
“Nah, it was nothing like that,” Jensen says quickly, aware of the way Jared has perched on the mausoleum next door to where Gen and Chad are seated, looking just as curious. “He never…Dad never hit me, or my sister he just. He was an asshole. One day he was a great Dad and then,” Jensen blinks at the orange glow of the street lamps, “not so much.”  
  
He stares off into the darkness, leans back against the chipping wall of a tomb, because it’s easier than looking at Chad and Gen, let alone Jared.  
  
“What happened to change him?” The glow of Gen’s cigarette matches the street lamps around the walls of the cemetery, dim in the distance.  
  
The air is suddenly very still in the cemetery, but Chad and Genevieve do not do him the courtesy of acting like they are uncomfortable with the subject. They only look apologetic, sympathetic, puffing on cigarettes. Despite that, it isn’t entirely comfortable, talking with Gen and Chad. He simply has no practice, and even with the cloak of darkness Jensen feels very exposed, standing there, talking about his Dad openly for what feels like the first time since his Mom left with them.  
  
By happenstance, Jensen flicks his gaze over to Jared, who’s sitting, elbows on his knees. He’s very faint, but their eyes meet amidst fog and cigarette smoke. Jared wouldn’t judge him for what he has to say. Jared, by this point, has probably already seen the absolute worst stuff about Jensen. Jensen used to take comfort in that fact because Jared was dead, and wouldn’t be able to tell anyone or judge him in the open. But now, Jensen rather takes comfort in the fact that Jared has already witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly of Jensen. The relief of not having to hide those parts of himself is swift, so he lets his stare linger on the boy without a tomb to crawl into, and takes in a slow breath.  
  
“I dunno, maybe it was his job, another woman, maybe he realized he didn’t love Mom as much as he thought. Whatever it was, he just stopped,” Jensen says. “I never found out why, but he got withdrawn, indifferent. Mean, even.” He breathes in the smell of his friend’s cigarettes, and seven years of mental time travel brings him back to those last few months in the house in Richardson, of tiptoeing around corners and subjects without any explanation of why, just so he wouldn’t make his Dad angry.  
  
“There’s no better feeling than a Dad who tells you you’re too stupid to go for Debate team, brushes you aside when all you want to do is tell him what you learned in school that day, forgets to pick you up from school, or when your birthday is. One day, he forgot to pick me and my little sister up from school. My brother went to a friend’s house. And me and Mac, we,” he cuts off with a harsh laugh, and Jared’s expression tells him everything he needs to know about how pathetic this sounds, “we sat there in the school parking lot for three hours. It started to get dark, so I decided to walk me and my sister home from school. We lived fifteen miles away. A teacher saw us on the side of the highway and took us home. He’s tried to make amends, sure, says he’s changed. But I know it’s just my Mom’s influence trying to keep him in line after all this time. She still thinks if she pretends for our sake, that me and Mac will be happy like before.”  
  
But Jensen knows his Dad hasn't changed. Because people don’t change for the better, or move forward. They just become worse, more weathered versions of themselves, forgotten and un-mourned graves in an overcrowded cemetery.  
  
“I never understood what happened to him, why he got to be…like he was. I think,” he swallows, dry throat clicking, “I think he just burned out. Whatever life had brought him, it wasn’t want he wanted, so he shut down, shut it out, shut us out.” He blinks. He’s never told this story before. It didn’t rend him to pieces the way he always worried it would.  
  
“Asshole,” Chad inputs, lips tight against his cigarette.  
  
“Bastard,” Jensen tacks on for good measure, feeling the vindictiveness curve off the B. It tastes good to sound angry. Anger tastes sharp and acrid, spoiled milk. Much easier to handle than sadness.  
  
“I’m sorry.” Jared is frowning again, but the expression is significant shades more upset than earlier, and Jensen feels like a tool for it.  
  
“It feels stupid to complain,” Jensen responds, watching smoke and fog curl together.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Genevieve says casually, but she’s stubbed out her half-finished cigarette on the grave, and in the darkness Jensen can make out the downturned corners of her mouth, almost identical to Jared’s. “We’ve all got our emotional baggage to contribute to our fucked up teenager mentality, ain’t that right Chad?”  
  
Chad nods, cigarette protruding from his mouth at an angle. “My mom skipped town when I was just a kid, junkie and all that shit. Dunno if she’s even alive.”  
  
“And I’ve got a sister who’s in jail for embezzling money from our family. Total bitch.” Gen shrugs. “It’s not complaining, because everyone has ghosts from their pasts. We bitch about it because it feels good. It’s called bonding. Now,” she pats the stone slab beneath her, “come over here and sit on this dead man’s tomb with us so we can bond some more.”  
  
Jensen does, and by the time Chad has finished his one cigarette, Jensen’s back to trading jibes and jokes with the two of them, and Jared has gone.  
  
He gets back home at one am or so, careful to sneak up the stairs as silent as can be.  
  
Jared’s seated on the edge of Jensen’s bed, and what once would have sent Jensen into a tizzy of either irritation or fear or both is now met with a strong sense of routine. Jensen takes his time getting ready for bed, brushing his teeth and flossing, allowing exhaustion to push his mind to sleepier, calmer places. Normally he’d be panicking that he’d shared his quintessential Deadbeat Dad story, but Jensen likes the lighter weight to his chest, likes the fact that when he’d dropped them off, Gen had kissed Jensen’s cheek and Chad had mussed Jensen’s hair and it was good to be a part of something, one in a group of somebodies that would notice if he didn’t show up to school tomorrow.  
  
Jared comes in after a moment, perching on the edge of the bathtub and watching Jensen wash his face.  
  
“You didn’t have to tell me that,” Jared says after a moment.  
  
“Like you didn’t already know.”  
  
“I knew pieces,” Jared admits. “Your mom talks to your aunt a lot on the phone when you’re not home.”  
  
Jensen blots at his face with a towel and straightens, examining himself in the mirror, then Jared over his shoulder. He looks small amidst the tub, pale gray contrasted with porcelain, toes curled slightly against the tile floor. Normally Jensen would complain about the intrusion of his privacy and tell Jared to scram.  
He doesn’t feel inclined, this time around.  
  
“I didn’t find my grave,” Jared confesses, head bowed.  
  
Jensen handles the towel very carefully. “There are a lot of cemeteries in this world.”  
  
“I know.” Jared smiles, then, self-deprecating and sweet—there’s no other word for it that comes to Jensen’s mind. “I just. It’d be nice to know where I belonged, where I’m supposed to fit.”  
  
Jared holds his hand up to the light, peering through it.  
  
“Casa De Ackles ain’t no Holiday Inn, but I hear the rent is free.” Jensen turns around, hoping for a smile that he wasn’t aware he’d been searching for in the first place.  
  
Jared gives it to him in spades, and they part for the first time since Jared’s appearance, on amicable terms.  
  
\--  
  
He burns Playlist #57 onto an opaque and shiny disc that he labels in purple sharpie and leaves on top of this week’s Ghost Movie stack for Jared to find.  
  
Playlist #57: I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts.  
  
Jensen finds his room tidied each and every morning. His showers go uninterrupted. His boxers stop disappearing.  
  
Neither of them mentions it.


	9. Chapter 9

Jensen wakes early up on March first.  
  
An array of thumb tacks, pencils and paper clips are arranged on the floor smack dab in the center of his room spelling out “HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENSEN” in perfectly straight alignment. It must have taken Jared all night to push into place. Jensen smiles so hard his jaw aches with it.  
  
He’s eighteen. An adult. Six months ago that would have meant he’d be out and fishing for his own apartment as soon as he could, trying hard and fast to be an adult, to get away from this family, from this house.  
  
Now though, he thinks things are a little different.  
  
“Morning, Mom.” Jensen kisses his mother’s cheek and it hurts just a little to see her look so surprised, even pleasantly so.  
  
“Happy Birthday, Mr. Adult. You seem in a very good mood.”  
  
And he is. Jensen has never been one for birthdays. Because birthdays simply represent getting one year older, living in one more shitty town, and getting one more unsentimental card in the mail from his dad, usually with some very clichéd message and then a signature and a check that was supposed to assuage the horrifyingly blatant absence of his father in his life.  
  
It’s still the same as it’s always been, but Jensen feels like he’s standing on the other side of the fence with greener grass and he’s just…he’s happy.  
  
That or he’s got some weird indigestion coming on.  
  
Donna makes waffles for breakfast and Mac gives Jensen a hug and licks him like a cat when he squeezes her too tight. Jared doesn’t show, but Jensen figures he’s resting up after the birthday gift he displayed on Jensen’s floor this morning.  
  
It gets even better.  
  
He has no idea how, but somehow Gen caught wind of Jensen’s birthday, and must have told Chad, because when he gets to English there’s a box of animal cookies and condoms wrapped in a bow on his desk. Chad and Gen claim to not know what Jensen is thanking them for, but he catches them sharing a silent high five as Mr. Chang calls the class to attention.  
  
All throughout the day are little gifts left on his desk at the start of every class. He can’t tell if Gen simply enlisted the aid of a freshman who wanted to make a few extra bucks, or if she’s just really sneaky. But each class reveals some form of gift. A lanyard for his car keys, blank CDs for making music mixes, brand new earphones, more snacks. Jensen’s just about carting around an armful of stuff by the time he gets to lunch, and when he sits down it’s in front of a small dark chocolate cake, with loopy green icing reading “Happy Birthday Jenny!” that can only be Chad’s handiwork.  
  
“Well, do you like it?” Gen almost looks nervous.  
  
Jensen doesn’t know how to tell them that the only cake he can really stomach is cake sans icing, because he doesn’t really like sweets. He doesn’t know how to explain that he likes vanilla more than chocolate. None of that really matters, because they made him a cake. They gave him presents and they made him a  _cake_.  
  
“I tried to tell her we should just screen print a dick-pic on it, but she said we had no volunteers. And then when I volunteered, she said we didn’t want to traumatize you for your birthday. Though I beg to differ that my dick is anything if not a gift from g—“  
  
“I love it.” Jensen looks up at his classmates—his  _friends_ —and suddenly there’s a weird tight feeling in his chest, wedging up his esophagus and knotting in his throat. “I…thank you so much.”  
  
He blinks a little bit, weirded out by his body’s sudden need to feel like he’s swallowing a golf ball, what the hell is up with that?—and then turns to the cake to take a bite, before offering some to Gen and Chad.  
  
It’s sweet and spongy maybe a little too cooked but it’s the best thing Jensen’s ever tasted, bar none.  
  
  
\--  
  
Jensen drives home, and Jared’s waiting for him in the foyer.  
  
“Happy Birthday!” Jared yells, loud enough that it echoes up the stairwell and off the chandelier. “Happy birthday to you! Man, you’re old!”  
  
By the time he gets upstairs, Jared’s talked his ear off, explaining exactly how much of an effort it was to get Jensen’s ‘birthday card’ set up, and what a badass he is, and isn’t Jensen just so glad he has Jared around to remember important days like this? Leave it to Jared to give him a blow by blow play of every single detail, but Jensen doesn’t mind. He sprawls out all his books and lies down in the sunshine streaming through his window, and lets Jared tell him things.  
  
When he heads down to the call of dinner, Jared’s nearly bursting with excitement, bouncing on his heels as he trots in front of Jensen. “Dude, wait till you see what your Mom made for your birthday dinner, I am so jealous. I would kill myself to eat a meal like this. I mean, kill myself again.”  
  
Jared isn’t far off; Donna pulled out all the stops, fajitas and fresh beans and Spanish rice that makes Jensen’s mouth water as soon as he smells it. They sit down at the massive dining room table, and Jared tries to keep from rattling his mouth and distracting Jensen as Donna asks Jensen how his day was, what did he do.  
  
It’s a little hard, because Jensen keeps tuning in to Jared’s input and commentary and fighting to hide his smiles when Jared cracks jokes. He doesn’t seem to be doing a good job, because Donna keeps asking him what he’s smiling at and Jared just smirks and says, “Made ya look.”  
  
Donna brings out a fancy fruit tart with eighteen candles on it after they’ve cleared the dinner table, claiming she knows Jensen doesn’t care for desserts but she hopes this is okay. Jensen hugs her and Mac hugs them both and Jared winks at Jensen from behind his Mother’s shoulder and it’s sort of the best birthday ever.  
  
Mac turns all the lights off as Donna lights the candles, Jared making an eerie howling noise in the dark, and Jensen rolls his eyes as he walks over to stand before the tart. In the soft glow of the firelight he can make out Jared, smiling at him from across the table, joining in with Donna and Mac to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. The baritone of Jared’s voice goes all pitchy as he belts like he’s Mariah Carey and Jensen has to try very hard not to snort at the obnoxious display.  
  
The song concludes, and Mac pokes at his ribs. “Make a wish, dumbo!”  
  
“Give him a minute, Mackenzie, this is a very important wish!” Donna tuts.  
  
Jensen screws up his face, like he’s thinking really hard. But really he’s just staring over at the apparition of a boy standing across from him. Jared’s got his tongue tucked between his teeth as he waits for Jensen to make his wish. In the candlelight his form looks more orange than grey, the lines and angles of him standing out sharper in the dark. His vapor actually looks like it has pigment, tan skin instead of gray space. It occurs to Jensen that Jared’s skin would probably be warm if Jensen were to touch it, if Jensen could touch it. If Jared were alive.  
  
The thought’s gone as soon as it’s come, and Jensen blinks to look down at the wax dripping off the candles onto the strawberries and blueberries littering the tart.  
  
“Yeah, Mr. Man, make a wish. I’m not getting any younger over here. Or older, for that matter,” Jared teases, the kind of mockery that makes Jensen want to punch him. Wish he could punch him.  
  
He leans over the candles, eyes locked on Jared, and blows the candle out.  
  
Jensen’s not one to believe that wishes come true, and if any wish of his were to come true, it wouldn’t be this one.  
  
It doesn’t stop him from hoping that it’s the one that finally does come true.  
  
\--  
  
Gen and Chad, determined to make the absolute most of Jensen’s eighteenth birthday, announce an impromptu birthday camping trip a week later, on their Spring Break. Jensen’s too surprised to argue and before he knows it he’s driving over to pick Gen and Chad up from their houses at dawn, Jared chattering excitedly in the backseat. ‘Spontaneous YOLO’ as Chad deems it, has never been something on Jensen’s life to do list, but he takes to it like a charm, the three of them (plus Jared) committing to a thirteen hour drive with nothing but stupid jokes and music to entertain them . There’s something extremely foolhardy about this entire endeavor, about swapping Gatorade and Cheetos and getting out of the truck every so often to find themselves in a different town, and that’s kind of neat.  
  
The humidity of Louisiana subtly shifts to the arid heat of Texas, and they roll down the windows just as the sun is starting to sink. They’ve long ago left the swamps and Spanish moss, now driving through deeply lined canyon walls, winding roads that snake between large rock structures, building blocks and architecture set up long before modern technologies.  
  
“Welcome, my friend, to Palo Duro Canyon.” Chad grins, taking his turn at the wheel.  
  
Camping had never really been a part of Jensen’s childhood, not since Boy Scout trips with Josh when they were kids. Nature, really, until Singer, hadn’t been part of his growing up either. He’d seen all of America’s heartland through the passenger seat window.  
  
But the canyon is huge, beautiful, thick red rocks standing like clay figures stacked one on top of the other, tall walls that swallow the truck and the sun up, casting them in shadow with rays of sun squinting over the rim.  
  
“Alright, Jensen, time to get out there,” Gen says.  
  
“Come again?”  
  
“Get out into the truck bed!”  
  
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”  
  
“You wanna hang with the cool kids, you gotta be cool,” Gen says. “It’s amazing. Trust me. You haven’t lived until you’ve ridden through the canyon in the back of a pickup.”  
  
She slides the back window open invitingly. “Alright, you ready?”  
  
Jensen isn’t ready; Jensen isn’t even sure what the hell he’s supposed to be doing.  
  
“Go!” Chad yells, tongue rolling in the wind like an overexcited dog. “Go now!”  
  
Jensen’s absolutely positive that Chad will shove him out if he doesn’t move of his own volition, so there’s no argument to be made as he wedges his body through the tiny window and clambers into the pickup bed. The canyon they’re driving through echoes with sound as Chad cranks up the volume of the song especially loud.  
  
“What are you doing?” Jensen hollers.  
  
“Setting the mood!” Chad hollers back, and Gen’s laughter underscores the sound of him whooping in time with the music. “I found this playlist on your iPod, thought it’d be good!”  
  
Of course he liked it. The playlist was entirely comprised of Jared’s favorites, or rather, the one of the one’s out of Jensen’s collection that he found the most tolerable.  
  
Jensen grips the roof of the truck as he stands, cool spring breeze whipping at his face and nearly knocking him over in the process. The music floats up from the front of the truck and through the open sunroof, clanging off the canyon walls. Jensen soars, heart pounding, hearing the notes and the rumble of his truck through him as he flies like a herd of wild horses.  
  
“Scream!” Chad commands, turning around so far the truck swerves out into the middle of the road and Gen grabs the steering wheel yelling, “Quit that!”  
  
“I won’t quit until Jenny has a little fun! Scream Jenny!” Chad crows, directing the truck so they’re now straddling the road divide, Gen pummeling into his side and laughing as he does so. “Scream like the cock-thirsty porn star we know you aspire to be!”  
  
A loud laugh sounds off to Jensen’s left and he glances down through the sun roof to see Jared looking at him from inside the truck, just as Gen starts pulling ferociously at Chad’s hair.  
  
“C’mon Jensen!” Jared yells. “I’ll do it with you!”  
  
It feels a lot like taking some kind of weirdo leap of faith, only there’s no risk of falling. But Jensen’s got a feeling that if he doesn’t scream, doesn’t do whatever whack-a-do thing Chad asks of him in this moment, that he’s going to lose something he’s only just begun to grasp.  
  
So he stands to full height, leaning back on his heels and leaning into the wind pushing him further back as he holds on to dear life to the open edge of the sun roof.  
  
And he screams.  
  
The first scream tapers off into near hysterical laughter, cadenced with the resounding cheers of Gen and Chad, who have started chanting “One of us! One of us!” in the truck. Chad swerves the truck a few more times and Jensen screams out into the open highway air, canyon reverberation amplifying him in a way that makes it almost seem like a song.  
  
Without a doubt it’s the stupidest most foolhardy thing Jensen’s ever done. But he glances down mid-crow and sees Jared looking up at him through the sun roof and, yeah, that kind of makes it totally worth it. Jared looks delighted, like Christmas came early and all the other holidays shortly after.  
  
“Wish I had a camera right now, you look priceless!” he shouts, turning that full throttle smile of his over his shoulder at Jensen.  
  
Something unlocks inside Jensen’s chest, which is silly because he’s not a Tin Man and implying that every heart has a key is incredibly cliché, but he honest to God feels it, and with it comes a swooping sensation that’s got nothing to do with the fact that they’re going about one hundred and ten miles per hour and everything to do with that full throttle smile.  
  
By the time he gets back into the truck, Jared’s seated behind Gen and Chad, and all three of them are grinning at Jensen like he won some kind of prize.  
  
“Much more high pitched than I’d expected,” Chad muses, not even ducking when Gen calmly smacks him upside the head.  
  
\--  
  
They reach the camping ground by dusk, lighting a fire and setting about their dinner of pan cooked kettle corn and hot dogs without buns. Chad and Gen continue their usual banter, huddling close together for warmth in the rapidly cooling temperatures of the desert. Jared sits on the log next to Jensen, though he tries his best to keep his distance.  
  
Jensen’s all too aware of the way Chad and Gen can’t seem to stop touching each other, innocent brushes of contact that distract them to the point where Jensen can’t hold a conversation with either of them. He’d tried to the best of his ability to talk to Gen about Chad a few weeks back, but any mention of Chad liking Gen sent her so far into spasms of denial and furious blushing that she’d hardly been able to get a word out beyond “He’s like my brother, he doesn’t feel about me that way, right? I mean it’s weird, right? You wouldn’t date your brother, right?”. Her crush had been just as obvious, if not moreso, despite her cool exterior whenever Chad was around. But even with that evidence, it wasn’t up until now, amidst a campfire and a sky full of stars, that they’d finally begun fumbling their way to something significant, something that they both wanted. They just needed one last push, and Jensen was sure they’d be unable to deny it. He stands, stretches, makes a big show of moving away.  
  
“I’m gonna go take a leak.” Jensen glances pointedly at Jared. It probably looks weird, him staring meaningfully off into the darkness, but neither Gen nor Chad are aware enough of Jensen to really pay mind as he saunters away, Jared trailing after him.  
  
“Thought you liked your privacy,” Jared smirks. “But hey, I’ll watch you water the horse.”  
  
“I don’t actually have to piss, Jared.” Jensen rolls his eyes. “Didn’t you see what was happening there?”  
  
Jensen glances once over his shoulder and sure enough, Chad’s whispering something into Gen’s ear, voice low and intimate enough that Gen looks slightly flushed in the campfire glow, and not at all because of the heat emanating from the flames. Jared follows his gaze.  
  
“Oh.” Jared stops, thoughtful, and then, “Oh!” breaking into a giddy grin and pushing onward, looking up at the moon. Jensen’s feet crush against rocks and snap twigs but Jared appears to glide on silence, Jensen’s own personal shadow, seemingly cast from the moonbeams slanting through the trees towards them.  
  
“Yeah. They’re gonna need a moment. Or ten.” Jensen grins and waggles his eyebrows and Jared snorts, scrunching his eyebrows together.  
  
“You mean you’re not down for the peep show?”  
  
“Gross. They’re my best friends, and I love ‘em, but I do  _not_  wanna see Chad’s tongue down her throat if I can help it.”  
  
They follow down a random path through the campground, the space of clustered bushes opening up into a wide clearing with scattered rock outcroppings.  
  
Somewhere off in the canyon, a coyote yips, several more joining in. Jensen recalls having read somewhere that coyotes howl to find their pack, to find their home.  
  
“God.” Jared’s voice suddenly sounds off to Jensen’s left, and he stops short to find Jared sprawled out on a large flat rock embedded in the ground, gazing upwards. “Would you look at those stars?”  
  
That goofy lopsided smile from earlier slides onto Jared’s face, and there’s a weird pang in Jensen’s lower abdomen, kind of like he’s been sucker punched.  
  
“I remember…my Dad took me camping once,” Jared says softly, speaking as if he’s not even aware of his words. “At least, I think he did. I’m not sure how old I was, but it just him and me. We laid out sleeping bags and he showed me all the stars, named them.”  
  
Jared frowns, bottom lip jutting out just slightly as he squints upwards. “I can’t remember if I had fun or not, or what time of the year it was. But I remember falling asleep under the stars. And I…I remember waking just as dawn rose and feeling freezing cold. The sky was turning from black to pink, and I watched it. I wanted to be an astronaut, I think. I wanted to go up into space and touch the stars and see that sun rise on the edge of the world.”  
  
Jensen, typically and unsurprisingly inept at talking during moments like these, sits down next to Jared, grounding himself with the feel of sandstone pressing up against his palms, dirt wedging its way under his fingernails.  
  
“What do you think happens to us when we die?” Jared tips his head cajolingly. “I mean. When you die the right way, and don’t end up stuck, like me. What do you think happens?”  
  
Jensen chews the inner meat of his cheek. Until recently, as far as he was concerned, what happened after death didn’t really matter much, because you were, well,  _dead_. Throughout Jensen’s Christian-tinted background, even as far back as childhood, afterlife was never something he’d contemplated. As a kid he was too young to care, and as a cynical teenager, he practically didn’t care on principle. He doesn’t really know how to tell Jared that he doesn’t think anything happens. That you just die, no ifs ands or buts about it.  
  
He can’t tell Jared that because now ghosts are real and well, Jensen’s pretty much open to anything within that ballpark range. Denying the possibility of an afterlife would be like denying Jared’s own existence in this moment. Rather moot.  
  
“I never really thought about it,” he lies, reaching away from the rock and kneading the earth beneath his hands, burying the truth in the rocky soil.  
  
Jared continues on without any indication of having heard him. “I like the idea that we go to the stars when we die. There’s no heaven, or hell, there’s just us, then death, then starstuff, no matter what we did or who we were when we were alive. I like the idea that people can become something as amazing as a star, no matter what their past. You’re up there or you’re down here or you’re like me, the inbetweener. As long as I’ve been dead, I’ve always imagined that we become stars. I have to admit, though, my conviction might be wavering a bit on that one.” He sniffs, shaking his shaggy hair loose, cracking a smile that doesn’t quite shine through. “I’m not really sure where I’ll go when I pass on. But if I could choose, well, I’d want it to be up there.”  
  
Up there. Jensen cranes his neck back to look. Billions and trillions of stars scintillating like a dark black canvas leaking light down onto them. A soup of diamonds spilled over black velvet. Jensen squints, tries to imagine that the stars are people; that Grandpa Lewis is up there twinkling at him, his old dog Chevy. Anyone who’s ever died, Don Mclean, John Bonham, and maybe someday Jared, all of them watching him, seeing how he lives and breathes and takes up unwanted space.  
  
He wonders what they’d think of him, if they’d think of him at all.  
  
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Jared suddenly sounds very young.  
  
It’s never been a question. Since the divorce, Jensen wanted to be many things. Gone. Ignored. Alone. Somewhere where he couldn’t disappoint anyone, because there wasn’t anyone around to disappoint. He’d always imagined getting a smalltime day job, maybe flipping burgers, delivering papers, whatever it took to pay the bills for the apartment in whatever big city he could get to first. Amounting to something,  _being_  someone, doing something with his life, had never occurred to him.  
  
No one had ever really asked.  
  
“A fisherman,” he finds himself blurting. “Me. Alone on a boat. Just a man and the ocean.”  
  
It’s a lie. Jensen hates fish, but it’s the furthest thing he can think of that delineates from actually answering the question. He doesn’t like having to think about the things he actually wants. Jensen’s finding more and more often that the things he wants are shifting. He used to want peace, an empty house, a quiet life.  
  
Watching Jared beside him, well, Jensen’s not entirely sure that’s the case anymore.  
  
He’s no longer sure what he wants, but if it works like any other desire he’s had in his life, he’s never going to get it. He’s long accepted that fact.  
  
“Really? You’d want that?” Jared laughs, a bounce of color back in his voice. “Don’t kid me man, I know you’re just a cuddly teddy bear underneath.”  
  
Jensen glares at Jared, and Jared nudges his foot towards Jensen threateningly. “C’mon, tell me what you’d want to do! Anything! No limitations! What do you want to be when you grow up?”  
  
“Jared. I’m eighteen. I  _am_  grown up.”  
  
“So? What do you want to be? If you could do anything, what would it be?”  
  
“I told you. Boat. Ocean. Me. Nobody else. Just let it be, okay?”  
  
His tone must indicate enough finality that Jared drops the subject. At least, Jensen thinks he does. He stands, slowly, brushing invisible dust off his jeans and looking at Jensen oddly. “Well come on then. They’ve got to be finished making out by now. We’ve given them at least ten minutes.”  
  
Ten minutes doesn’t appear to have been enough. Jensen just barely enters the campsite and Gen and Chad are leaping apart like busted firecrackers, Gen wiping her mouth and Chad trying and failing to make his hair lie flat. They look so guilty that Jensen can’t help but laugh hysterically, because they’re acting as if he’s going to scold them.  
  
“Save room for Jesus,” he cackles, seating himself back on the log. Gen blushes furiously and whispers “Shut up”, but the smile breaking across her face is radiant, and the sight of it makes Chad smile just as big. Then they’re just sitting there smiling at each other like idiots and Jensen clears his throat and says, “Alright, I give you my blessing, but I do  _not_  give you permission to go at it in front of me. Think you can hold off into tomorrow?”  
  
It’s amazing, watching two people slip into a relationship with no effort. Jensen had at least been expecting some residual awkwardness between them, especially with his entrance. But Chad scoots back over and throws his arm around Gen’s shoulder and pulls her close like she’d been there all along and never left. They budge Jensen over on the log, Gen in the middle, Jared hovering close to the flames at Jensen’s feet. Chad starts bitching about marshmallows (‘I mean, how burnt does a marshmallow need to be to be considered cancerous? Because I’m a more a fan of charred than golden brown. I happen to _like_  it when things catch on fire’) as Gen slides a hand over Jensen’s and squeezes slightly, a silent thank you that Jared catches and grins at, nodding approvingly.  
  
They swap shitty scary stories (Chad spends half an hour weaving a tale of The Gazoon that leaves them in stitches as opposed to shaking in terror) and embarrassing anecdotes (Gen getting sick on the tilt-a-whirl at the school carnival, Chad carrying her home with cotton-candy spritzed vomit up and down his shirt). Between Chad’s ridiculous gestures and narration and Gen’s glib dialogue coupled with Jared’s commentary, the fire has simmered down to embers by the time they call it a night.  
  
Gen pitches the tent, bitching Chad out for being a useless piece of trash and forbidding him from helping out (something about a rain fly and lighter fluid from two summers ago), and Jensen snags all the sleeping bags from the back of the truck, before stopping, watching Chad and Gen snapping at each other like an old married couple. He tosses two sleeping bags at Chad’s head and responds to the well placed flipped bird with a, “I’ll let you have the tent to yourselves, lovebirds, but no sex. I mean it. I hear so much as one suggestive noise from that tent and there’ll be another lighter fluid story to add to the mix, got it?”  
  
Looking equal parts humiliated and grateful, they bid Jensen goodnight (Gen with a peck to his cheek and a scrub of his hair, Chad socking him over the head with the sleeping bag and a ‘Payback, Bitch’) and head inside the tiny pitched tent, murmuring softly in tones that sound sweeter than honey in the wind symphony that sings through the air, slipping through the canyon and Cottonwood trees.  
  
“Where the hell are you going to sleep?” Jared asks as Jensen turns heel and heads for the truck. “Front seat can’t be all that comfortable.”  
  
Jensen silently opens the truck bed in answer, unfurling his sleeping bag. As much as there is indeed a snarky response on the tip of his tongue, Gen and Chad are barely fifty feet away, and he’s not too sure they would be able to ignore him talking to himself in the dark campground.  
  
It’s a bit too chilly out for this to be entirely safe, but he snuggles into the sleeping bag, kicking off his shoes and pulling the drawstring tight. He worms his way onto his back, ignoring Jared’s incredulous staring.  
  
“You’re going to die of hypothermia.”  
  
“Don’t be a drama queen. Just be sure not to touch me and I’ll be fine,” Jensen whispers, low enough that he knows it won’t carry across the clearing.  
  
“Why are you out here? Why not sleep in the truck?”  
  
Jensen sighs and stares pointedly up at the stars.  
  
Jared blinks, tone altering. “Oh.”  
  
It’s completely silent, but he senses Jared clamber up into the truck bed beside him. They both lie on their backs, gazing up at places millions of miles away. Hypothetical people, millions of miles away.  
  
The murmuring across the clearing has stopped, the flashlight in the tent turned off.  
  
“They’re happy,” Jared says softly.  
  
“You sound surprised.” Jensen raises an eyebrow.  
  
“I mean…” Jared scuffs the bottom of his shoe against the side of the truck bed, making no sound as he does so. “I mean they’re really  _really_  happy. I can feel it.”  
  
“How so?”  
  
“It’s just a sense. Just like when I pick up on when you’re angry, or scared. Kind of like scents, but more emotional. They have to be strong emotions, and even then I can barely feel them, sort of like a tug on my shirt. But yeah, they’re very happy.”  
  
Jensen smiles up at the stars, searching out the Big Dipper. “Good.”  
  
Gen and Chad are together, he couldn’t be more relieved for the two of them. What appeared to be years of sexual tension finally turned out for the better, and he doesn’t even feel like a third wheel with the resulting outcome. He feels calm. That’s the best word to describe the soothing lull of his blood as he stares up at the stars, sleep pulling him under a warmer blanket--  
  
“Are you?”  
  
Jensen’s eyes snap open and he looks over to where Jared’s staring up at the sky.  
  
“Am I what?”  
  
Jared looks over at him, “Happy?”  
  
“I’m never happy,” Jensen snorts, jaw practically unhinging as a colossal yawn overtakes him.  
  
“But I have to  _make_  you happy. It’s the only way I can move on properly.”  
  
“How are we so sure that it’s me being happy that’ll make you move on? Maybe you just need to find some lost family heirloom. Buried treasure. Tell your ex-girlfriend you love them. I don’t know.”  
  
“I already told you, I don’t have any unfinished business that I can remember. It’s help you or nothing, so I might as well try. It can’t hurt. Besides, you’ll move away eventually, so I’ll just call it quits when that happens.”  
  
Jensen rolls onto his side, feeling the grooves of the truck bed press uncomfortably on his ribcage through the sleeping bag as he rounds on Jared.  
  
“Who said I was moving away?” he snaps.  
  
The space around them feels tense, and even with the pale bleakness of moon and the small distance, it’s hard to tell what Jared’s face is actually expressing. There’s a twist of his mouth that suggests resentment, but it’s more likely a trick of the light.  
  
“No one. I just know your Mom’s history with jobs isn’t exactly a stable one. You said it yourself. She has a habit of taking off and starting over when it looks like things are about to fall through. So you’ll take off and someone else will move in. And who knows? Maybe I’m supposed to help  _them_  be happy. Maybe I can. Maybe I will. Maybe then I’ll go and see the stars.”  
  
Jared sounds equal parts serious and joking, which is all the more irritating as Jensen props himself up on his elbow, opening his mouth and closing it with a click, gritting his teeth.  
  
“So, what, I move away, and you just forget all about me? Move on to a new torture subject?”  
  
“Am I wrong? Even if your Mom doesn’t get a new job, you’re not sticking around. You graduate in less than a month, Jensen. Anything keeping you here will be tied up or cut loose. I’m not an idiot. You want out.” Jared runs a tired hand through his bangs, lowering his voice and speaking quieter. “I wouldn’t forget about you, but I’m not about to delude myself into thinking you would stay.”  
  
Jensen stops short. Because that had been the plan, word for word verbatim.  
  
He would graduate and get the fuck out the door, the fuck out of dodge. Yet Jensen finds himself time and time again moderating the plan, changing it, pushing the launch date further and further back. There’s an excuse, always an excuse. Felicia needs his help at the library, Gen needs help keeping Chad in line, Chad needs help in English, someone’s gotta look after Mac, he’d miss his room, he’d miss his Mom, he’d miss his friends.  
  
He’d miss his ghost.  
  
Jensen scrubs a hand through his hair, frustrated, trying to form words that don’t sound like he’s completely lost his mind. This arrangement they had, this let-Jared-tag-along-as-long-as-he-doesn’t-get-too-out-of-control, this wasn’t something he was ever supposed to miss.  
  
He’s not supposed to miss his things vanishing or getting into trouble for things he didn’t do. Not foggy messages on his bathroom mirror or clothing items strewn on the chandelier, but he’d miss it all. The realization is less horrifying than he would have thought, and if Jensen doesn’t think about it, he’s sure he can come up with a good enough reason to justify his staying at the Harris Estate other than his own personal haunting.  
  
“I wouldn’t do that.” Jensen scratches at his nose, tucking the sleeping bag under his chin and feeling self conscious. “Leave without warning, or saying goodbye. I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”  
  
Jared looks skeptical, so Jensen counters with, “Look, I know I’m an asshole, but I’m not that big of an asshole, okay?”  
  
“You’re staying.”  
  
“For now.”  
  
“Until when?”  
  
“Until I’ve got enough income saved in that bank account I don’t have from that paying job I don’t have to afford a place of my own, yeah.”  
  
Jared doesn’t say anything, but the pull of his lips as he grins at the sky tells Jensen he’s said the magic words to satisfy. Jared nestles on the cold metal of the truck bed, looking only slightly pleased with himself. He keeps his space, respectful as always, but from this angle Jensen can make out the profile of his nose, the line of his jaw.  
  
He wonders what it is that makes him want to stay. Jared may be good looking, sure, and funny when he’s not being a dick, but he’s also dead.  
  
Technically dead, Jensen corrects himself. Dead for god knows how many years, but he certainly doesn’t act that way.  
  
“See that one? Right there?” Jared’s finger shoves its way into Jensen’s vision, making him go cross-eyed for a second as he follows the point into the sky. “The brightest one? That’s the Dog Star.”  
  
“How do you know that?”  
  
Jared shrugs. “I don’t know, I just kind of do.”  
  
He points out a few more obvious ones, the big and little dippers, Orion’s belt, Cygnus. He recites the stories from textbook memory and Jensen suddenly understands Jared’s wandering around the astronomy section of the library and knocking books of shelves. He loves this stuff, possesses a natural curiosity for things billions of miles away. Meanwhile Jensen can barely summon enough curiosity to consider what kind of cereal he likes best for breakfast.  
  
Jensen stares hard at the Dog Star, wondering who in this big giant earth with billions of people on it could be big and bright enough to be that star.  
  
He thinks he’d love to earn the bragging right of saying that his friend Jared is the biggest and the brightest.  
  
Jared would make a good star.  
  
“Radio DJ,” Jensen states, matter of fact. Jared stills, resettling his hand back down onto his chest. “I want to be a Radio DJ when I grow up. Nothing major, nothing mainstream. Just, my own little block of time where I can play whatever I want, in whatever order I want. Even if everyone thinks my music taste is shit.”  
  
There is a pause, and Jensen feels the weight of Jared’s gaze on him, as if it’s a tangible, substantial thing. They look at each other, and for one absolutely insane moment Jensen wonders if he should try and kiss him. It’s not even physically possible, let alone appropriate, but goddamn if he doesn’t want to try.  
  
“Your music taste  _is_  shit,” Jared quips, causing Jensen to glare, breaking the moment.  
  
“You are actually the worst.”  
  
“What would your name be, I wonder?” Jared leans back again, tucking his hands behind in head, staring upwards, mouth twisting in a smile. “DJ Jackles?”  
  
“I swear to god….”  
  
“Or how about DJ-ensen? DJ Swagles?” Jared ticks off the names on his fingers.  
  
They stare each other down for a long moment, before Jensen snorts and muffles the sound into the sleeping bag. Jared’s laughter echoes up the canyon walls and the coyotes yowl and the crickets sing and despite not being able to punch him or put him in a headlock the way he can Chad or Gen, Jared feels more real to Jensen than anything else in this world.  
  
Jared continues to torture him for some time with hideous radio-host nomenclature, and Jensen falls asleep counting stars.


	10. Chapter 10

 

With April trickling slowly by, Spring Fever is in full frontal force. When Genevieve and Chad aren’t attached at the lips, they’re attached at the hip, so much so that Jensen has resorted to calling them awful tabloid-splice styled nicknames. Chadevieve resent the idea that they are one person, but when a third hangout in a row turns into a date to a romantic movie with Jensen as the awkward third wheel, Jensen puts his foot down and enforces a no PDA rule as long as he is present.  
  
In their defense, Chadevieve try, valiantly. The truth is, it’s hard to scold and discipline when you’ve got two puppy dog eyed kids making the sappiest of sap eyes at each other from across the lunch table. It’s revolting, sickening, and Jensen makes a point of reenacting a gruesome death of gagging and hacking on his quesorito as Gen hops over to their side of the table, planting herself in Chad’s lap and smacking a kiss on his lips when Jensen finally gives in.  
  
“You ever think you might not be so bitter if you were getting a little tail as well?” Chad asks, disentangling himself from Gen with a glazed look in his eye just in time for Gen to smack him for the ‘tail’ comment.  
  
“Are you saying that because you’re actually looking out for me, or you just want me to have a distraction so I’m not playing the dateless moron with nothing to do except hang out with his rabidly horny friends?”  
  
“Both,” Gen admits, legs thrown across Chad’s lap, ignoring Chad’s protests as she steals bites of his food. “But don’t act like you’re not interested, too.”  
  
“Interested in what?” Jensen asks.  
  
“Guys, of course,” Gen answers.  
  
“What?!” Jared’s question cracks through the air like a whip as Jensen’s chocolate milk undergoes an extreme aneurism, bursting open. Gen and Chad leap up, swearing, as Jensen stares at Jared, feeling the blood drain from his face.  
  
“You’re gay?” Jared’s question is directed at Jensen, causing Gen’s apple cider wobble precariously as he asks. Jensen nods curtly in a brief answer to the question and feels miserable when Jared merely nods in understanding, looking tight lipped.  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Gen squeezes Jensen’s shoulder, leaning close to whisper. “If you’re not out, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I’ve got a sister that’s gay. And Chad’s uncle too….it’s not really a big deal, to us, just so you’re aware.”  
  
It’s not a big deal to Jensen either. Sexuality, like most other aspects of Jensen’s personality and general being, has been and always will be something he refuses to be ashamed of. That being said, Jensen’s sexual preferences have never really been a topic of conversation. More because he’s had no one to actually share them with than still being in the closet.  
  
“It’s fine,” Jensen says, squeezing Gen’s hand back. “I’m not…out. But I’m not “in” either. It’s never really come up.”  
  
“Well if there were ever a time to bring up your general gayness, it would be now, dearest,” Chad assures, squinting out at the cafeteria. “Because you’re a bachelor in your prime and this is the jungle and you’re the tiny watering hole and all those gay antelope out there,” he gestures to the general cafeteria area, “they’re thirsty.”  
  
“Thirsty,” Jensen says flatly.  
  
“Yes,” Chad nods. “Thirsty for the D.”  
  
The only person blushing harder than Jensen is Jared, who looks absolutely mortified at this entire conversation. Which hurts more than it should. Not that he’d assumed Jared was gay but…he definitely seemed more tolerant than he is acting right now.  
  
“Here.” A pen and notepad materialize out of nowhere, shoved under Jensen’s nose. “Write down all your personal information. Your likes, dislikes, sexual history, phone number, if you like to take it up the ass or give it—“  
  
“Jesus,  _why_?” Jensen’s face feels very hot.  
  
“Oh Jenny. Dear, dear sweet fresh faced precious Jenny.” Chad is peering out at the ‘antelope’ again. “Like I said. You’re the watering hole. They’re thirsty. My friend, it’s time to get you well and properly _laid_.”  
  
\--  
  
In the Hunt for Potential Sexual Conquests for Jensen conversation that ensues through the entirety of lunch period, there’s not one chance to look at Jared. Well, more like Jensen can’t bring himself to look at Jared. Warring embarrassment and irritation at said embarrassment twists his insides up.  
  
Later, driving home, is when Jensen finally broaches the subject, far too perturbed by the silence. Which is saying something huge that he doesn’t want to think about. How everything’s changed, how  _he’s_ changed. How silences he once found comforting are now the most disturbing thing to experience.  
  
“Look,” Jensen cuts to the chase, “if it bothers you, I get that. Chad was just joking around. Even if there are guys who want to date guys at this high school, they’re not going to want to do it with me, okay? So I’ll be sure not to expose you to any of my gayness, so you don’t have to look so grossed out.”  
  
Jared’s eyes widen and what was apparently held in during three hours of awkward silence pours forth. “What do you mean grossed out? I’m fine with gay. I love gay. I mean, I’m supportive of you being gay. Why wouldn’t I be? Do you think I’m homophobic I’m not homophobic I guess I was just surprised and processing but I don’t have a problem with it why would I have a problem with it ha that’s just stupid this is the twenty first century ha.”  
  
“I mean, even if Chad gets me a date, which he won’t, I’m not going to like….expose you to that. No one needs to be the third wheel.”  
  
“What, I’m not going to get a say in the dating game?” Jared grins.  
  
Jensen laughs, smoothing his palms over the steering wheel. “Dating game, my ass. Chad’s not going to find a guy, believe me. Chad’s good, but he’s not that good. Trust me.”  
  
\--  
  
Chad is that good. It takes him all of forty eight hours before he’s strutting into the English classroom like a peacock, slapping a small scrap of paper down on Jensen’s desk.  
  
“Aldis Hodge. Age eighteen. In your bio class. Likes guitar and camping. He thinks you have nice eyes. He’s going to call you tonight, so play nice.”  
  
Aldis does better than call, or rather, worse. Jensen isn’t sure how he feels about it either way, Aldis catching up to him after biology and grinning, albeit a little cockily, and saying, “Hey, Jensen. You busy Friday night?”  
  
“That depends,” Jensen says smoothly. When did he get smooth?  
  
“Depends?”  
  
“On what exactly you have in mind.”  
  
Aldis grins. “That’s for me to know and you to find out. Pick you up at seven. What’s your address?  
  
“335 Cold Oak Road. See you then.”  
  
\--  
  
“So, what, you’re just going on a date with some guy you just met?”  
  
Jensen’s toweling his hair, swiping residual soap from his ear, when Jared asks him this, sounding annoyed.  
  
“Yeah, what of it? That’s why you get to know them, Jared. That’s why it’s called dating.” Jensen sounds blasé, like he’s got it all down pat. He neglects to include the fact that his palms are just the slightest bit sweaty and his stomach is in knots. Jensen doesn’t date, Jensen doesn’t fuck, hell, Jensen doesn’t even really communicate with the sex he’s attracted to, for all intents and purposes. He’s not…nervous. Or maybe he is.  
  
Damn Chad, damn him to hell.  
  
“I don’t like this. I don’t like  _him_.”  
  
“You’ve never even met him. You were in the bathtub. Look,” Jensen flips through whatever decent shirts he’s got in his closet, settles on a dark purple polo that doesn’t make him look like too much of a douche, “you think your whole ‘unfinished business’ thing is making sure I know what fun is. Wouldn’t this fall under that definition?”  
  
“Technically yes, but—“  
  
“What are you afraid of, Jared?”  
  
“I’m not afraid.”  
  
“Jealous?” Jensen jokes.  
  
“You wish,” Jared scoffs, but he’s got his arms crossed over, in a way that he only ever does when he’s feeling self conscious or unsure.  
  
It’s got to be weird, for Jared. Having Jensen as his only contact, possessiveness over Jensen should be natural. Hell, Jensen would be the same if he only had one friend. Still, he’s…oddly excited. Not that he’s prepared for Aldis to turn out to be the man of his dreams, but hopefully he won’t be half bad.  
  
Aldis pulls up to the house with a honk, and Jensen walks out, Jared trailing after him like a puppy. He’s beyond grateful that Mom’s at work and Mac’s on a Girl Scout camping trip for the weekend, the thought of having to introduce them to Aldis is beyond mortifying.  
  
Not that Jared is much better, by comparison.  
  
“Be back by ten,” he warns. “Or I will throw your CD collection out the window again, I swear.”  
  
“Yeah, thanks Mom! I’ll see you later!” Jensen shouts sarcastically.  
  
Still, Jared watches from the window as the car drives away, vanishing at the fifty foot mark, and it makes Jensen feel just the slightest bit guilty.  
  
\--  
  
Aldis Hodge is surprisingly a really likeable guy. A little rugged, rough around the edges, but it’s very much something Jensen can get used to, maybe even enjoy. They hit up a restaurant in downtown New Orleans, crowded and cozy, full of tourists and city residents alike, and the two of them fit right in as they walk over to a small table near the back of the bar.  
  
Throughout the date, which includes some of the greatest gumbo Jensen’s ever tasted, they talk music tastes and sports, movies and classes at school. Aldis is a nice guy, and there’s a smoky baritone to his voice that makes Jensen far too aware of himself in an intriguing way.  
  
And yet, there’s something off that Jensen is unable to put his finger on. The attraction to Aldis is there, but in an off kilter way, like taking a bite into your favorite food and realizing it’s burnt, or undercooked, or has too much salt. It shows in the little things, and Jensen finds himself comparing Aldis to something he hasn’t yet begun to understand, nitpicky about the smallest of details that he would normally be turned on by. Things like Aldis being too muscled, the same height as him, having his hair so short it’s nearly a buzz cut, the bass quality of his voice. They’re all things that, by natural law, Jensen should be and is partially attracted to, but by the time Aldis has walked him back to his doorstep, Jensen’s kind of sure this isn’t really what he wants.  
  
Still. He’s supposed to be having fun. He can have fun, right?  
  
“Had a good time tonight, man.” Aldis steps closer. He smells strongly of cologne. Not unpleasant, just strong. “Think we’ll do it again sometime?”  
  
“Sometime,” Jensen says, smiling nervously, aware of Aldis leaning in, and not entirely sure whether he’s made his mind up or not about wanting this. Either way, there’s not much time to consider, because Aldis swings forward, and this, this is happening.  
  
When Aldis kisses him, the only thing Jensen can think is that he thought there’d be more. That feels like a piss poor observation to be having the first time you kiss someone, kiss anyone, but it’s there. Aldis’ lips are warm and insistent on Jensen’s, and all Jensen can think is ‘So this is it’. He hears a car down the road, notices the crickets fiddling in the night hair, wonders vaguely if Aldis tastes his jambalaya.  
  
Sure, his body’s responding, he is a teenager with a dick, after all. He supposes the rush of blood is unavoidable, yet he knows there’s supposed to be more. Not fireworks or time standing still any of that romance novel shit. Just. Something. Something more than this.  
  
Or maybe Jensen is just really that dead inside that he can’t even enjoy a first kiss.  
  
That realization is more of a dull thought than cause for anxiety, so he just keeps his eyes closed and wonders how long it would be socially acceptable to wait to stop kissing Aldis without seeming rude.  
  
Speaking of, Aldis seems to be getting kind of into it, and in an effort to give it all he’s got, Jensen matches him, and right off the bat, it’s awkward. Clunky in the way they identically clutch each other, like two negative magnets being pushed together, and never quite connecting. It’s not bad, Jensen thinks distractedly. Aldis is what Jensen—with all his worldly experience—would qualify as a damn good kisser. He does this thing with his teeth, some weird teasing bite and pull on Jensen’s bottom lip and whoa that feels way good and maybe this isn’t so terrible and maybe Jensen’s getting the hang of it and if he angles his head just the right way and—  
  
Jared is standing right behind Aldis, staring.  
  
“Gah!” Jensen leaps back like he’s on fire. “Fucking hell!”  
  
“Jesus, are you alright?” Aldis steps away, alarmed. “Did I do something wrong?”  
  
“Let’s see, where do I start?” Jared drawls sarcastically.  
  
“No, you didn’t,” Jensen cuts in, throwing Jared a furtive look over Aldis’ shoulder. “I’m sorry I just…I remembered I have a paper due tomorrow.”  
  
“A paper due. On a Saturday.” Aldis looks doubtful.  
  
“Yeah, teacher gave me an extension, I’ve got to email it by morning.”  
  
“And you just so happened to think of this while kissing me?” Aldis looks a bit pissed off.  
  
“Bummer man.” Jared crosses his arms over his chest. “Guess you’ll have to buff up your technique.”  
  
“That’s not what I meant,” Jensen backtracks, gritting his teeth against Jared’s snark. “You were good, the kissing was good, I just. I should really go finish that paper.”  
  
“Right,” Aldis says flatly. “Well, I’ll just get going then. I’ll see you Monday, I guess. Bye Jensen.”  
  
He steps forward like he’s searching for another peck, and in a panicked effort, Jensen dashes for the door. “Yeah see you then.” Before closing it in Aldis’ stunned face.  
  
“Nice.” Jared glides through the wall. “You sure showed him.”  
  
Jensen rounds on Jared. “Just what the everloving fuck is your problem?”  
  
Jared has the gall to look shocked, innocent even. “Me? I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who slammed the door in his face!”  
  
“Yeah because you were there hovering over us while we were making out!”  
  
“Please. That wasn’t making out. That was a full on inspection of your gum and dental hygiene that just happened to be done by his tongue. Don’t tell me you actually enjoyed that.”  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry, remind me when was the last time you were an expert on good kissing? As a matter of fact, when was the last time you kissed anyone?”  
  
Jared blocks Jensen on his way towards the stairs. “Tenant Number 5. Porn addict. I’ve seen it all, Jensen, I know what I like, or would like if I could like, and I know what getting kissed well looks like. I know what enjoying kissing looks like. And what I saw just now on the porch? Not it.”  
  
“Guess what, Jared? Unless Aldis is strangling me, what I do with him really isn’t your business, got it? Now move. I need a shower.”  
  
“You already showered,” Jared points out.  
  
“Fine. I need privacy, Jared! Since I’m not able to get any of that on my own goddamn dates!” Jensen snaps, refusing to feel remorse at the puppy dog look that Jared adopts, stepping aside. “I’m not a child, Jared. And as much as I know you want to help, I don’t need to be babysat, nor told what I do and don’t enjoy.”  
  
“Just tell me it was good, Jensen. Look me in the eye and tell me you liked it and I’ll drop this subject forever.”  
  
“The kissing was good.” White lies are easy. Jensen stares until Jared looks away.  
  
Jared can just walk through the bedroom door if he wants, but Jensen slams it to be perfunctory just the same.  
  
\--  
  
He has been playing Playlist #11: Leave me Alone rather pointedly for the last hour and a half. Jared is off somewhere in the house, but he saunters in from behind Jensen’s bed some time later, thoughtful. Jensen watches him from the bed as he crosses the room slowly, then turns heel at the last second.  
  
“But how were you sure you liked him, liked it?”  
  
Jared is propped up against the doorframe, arms swinging and knocking against the wood of the frame in a rhythm. Figures he would wait until now to come out, right when Jensen is so goddamn tired, so fucking sick and tired of ghosts that he wants to vomit with it.  
  
Jensen groans, turning up ‘Leave Me Alone’ in response. He doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. Even with forty five minutes spent in the shower Jensen feels the want to exfoliate, as ridiculous as that sounds. Rub the events of the day off his body and watch them slip down a drain, never to return again. There’s a weird tension in his lower intestine that pulsates in a sickly way and Jensen’s feeling nearly suffocated in the dark humidity of the room. He strips off the t-shirt he just put on, ignoring Jared as he pulls off his jeans and drops into sweatpants, unabashed. He’s learned by now that Jared will look away if Jared wants to look away.  
  
Jared doesn’t.  
  
“Look, I’ve had a long day and I don’t really feel like playing 20 Questions so if we could just skip that.” Heaven is what the mattress feels like when it hits his body, thick cool heaven with freshly washed sheets and he’s putting aside all thoughts of Aldis Hodge and his sex drive and the fact that he can’t just wrap a hand around himself and—  
  
“I just want to know, that’s all.”  
  
“Jesus fucking Christ, you want to know how?” Jensen shoots up, mouth working rapid-fire to spew whatever bullshit it takes to get Jared to shut up and leave him alone. “You’re aware of them. You know you like someone when every nerve of your body seems to have target locked on them. Kissing them isn’t about just kissing them, it’s about learning them, the feel of their lips on yours, the way they taste, yadda yadda yadda. You’re not thinking about what assignment you have due tomorrow, or that it’s hot as fuck outside, or that it might start to rain. When they touch you, you’re zeroed in and focused on them and them only.”  
  
“What about when they’re not touching you and you still want them. What does that feel like?”  
  
How is Jensen supposed to  _know_  this shit? Jared asks more questions than a Jeopardy champion and they’re all seeking answers Jensen pretty much doesn’t have. He considers, remembers, being fifteen, somewhere along the west coast in a weird experimental school, and feeling a kick to the ribs every time Mark Pellegrino smiled at him. Stupid crushes and pining over a guy he’d barely spoken to is not really ‘experience’ to cite, but Jensen gives it his best.  
  
“Even when they’re not touching you, maybe when they’re just near you, or away from you, you still feel them. As if in the act of thinking about them, you can feel them on your skin. Magnetism. Static electricity. Some crap like that. Capisce?”  
  
Blinking like an owl, Jared nods and Jensen collapses back onto his mattress, spent. He hadn’t meant to blow through and lecture like that to Jared. He should maybe apologize in the morning. It’s time for rest.  
  
And yet…  
  
He rolls over, punching his pillow, thinking absentmindedly that Jared’s going to have to learn. Aldis may have been the first date, but he’s not the last. Because tonight, whatever tonight had been, had been enjoyable to Jensen.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jared whispers.  
  
“It’s okay,” Jensen says grumpily.  
  
“Are you going to sleep?”  
  
“No, Jared. I’m just going to lie here with my eyes wide open until the sun comes up.”  
  
“I mean are you going to sleep right now? Are you tired?”  
  
“Jared. What. Do. You. Want?”  
  
“I just.” There’s the sound of a frustrated sigh from Jensen’s left. “I want to try something.”  
  
Jensen rolls over. In the moonlight Jared looks almost blue, that small private smile tugging at his lips that is really starting to piss Jensen off. How dare Jared smile like this, look curious and hesitant like this, _be_  like this.  
  
It never bothered Jensen before and now he feels his skin crawling with it. Like Jared’s expressions and words are bugs burrowing themselves inside where Jensen can’t get at them, an itch he can’t scratch.  
  
“What is it?” Jensen’s voice is croaky with exhaustion. Sweat trickles down the column of his throat and Jared’s eyes follow it.  
  
“Do you trust me?” Jared blurts, still staring at the hollow of Jensen’s neck, effectively avoiding Jensen’s eyes. “I know that’s a bit of a touch and go question but, do you trust me?”  
  
“Yeah.” Words are falling unbidden from Jensen’s lips, and the look on Jared’s face sends his heart thudding.  
  
“Yeah? Okay. Just. Lie back, and hold still.”  
  
Hesitation, an instinct to question, but Jensen just shrugs and does as he’s told. Jared moves to the edge of Jensen’s bed, off to the side, right next to Jensen’s head.  
  
He holds out his hand straight over Jensen’s face, making him go cross eyed for a moment.  
  
“Don’t freak out,” Jared whispers. “Just trust me, please.”  
  
In the back of Jensen’s mind he knows this is weird. Normally, this would end with him teasing Jared or calling Jared weird and then the two of them getting into some sort of verbal sparring match usually resulting in Jared finally getting fed up enough to disappear. This sort of intimate thing…it’s weird. It should be weird.  
  
Except for the fact that it really isn’t weird at all.  
  
Jared moves his palm down the line of Jensen’s body, like he’s searching for something. Not touching, never touching, but so close the hairs on the back of Jensen’s neck stand up. All the way down, over Jensen’s chest, his belly, the dip of his pelvic bone, the knobs of his knees, all the way down. Not quite touching, but just close enough that Jensen is aware of every single move he makes. Slow, painstakingly slow, whether it’s out of an attempt to not scare Jensen or simply an effort to drag it out, Jensen doesn’t know.  
  
Jared pauses at Jensen’s toes, glancing upwards from the edge of the bed. Eyes bright and hooded, and Jensen wonders abstractedly what color they are, if Jared remembers. There’s clarity to them that says blue-gray, but then a cloudier center around the iris that suggests a different color. Whatever the hue, they’re locked on Jensen’s face, and Jensen feels the look straight to the core of him, electricity hitting his marrow, body a steel cable of charge, lifting and jarring pieces of his outer shell, breaking loose the tar gathered up along the plate over his heart.  
  
Neither of them moves, neither of them make actual contact, but Jensen’s wrapped in an awareness of his physical being so encompassing that it stills him, despite the pounding of his heart and the speed of his breath, there’s no panic there’s just.  
  
Focus. Focus on absolutely nothing that isn’t the shape of Jared’s bottom lip, the fine hairs on Jared’s forearms, the length of his fingers. The mere presence of Jared shouldn’t feel like something Jensen can touch, but it does and he wants to. Wants to so much he can’t breathe with it.  
  
Then Jared moves back up, palm following the trek up to Jensen’s body, until it’s passing right over Jensen’s face once more, palm over Jensen’s eyes.  
  
He sees the ceiling through Jared’s hand, the dark corners of his room, but he also sees the spidery creases long and spanning down from center to the base of Jared’s palm. One curves around the pad of Jared’s thumb. The life line. However long it is, it’s not long enough, and Jensen aches because of it.  
  
The palm withdraws slowly, replaced by fingers that trace the outline of Jensen’s jaw, the cut of his cheekbone. In the thick and sweltering heat of the room the temperature of Jared’s near-touch is soothing, like pressing an ice cube to his skin and watching it melt. Jared’s careful to not actually touch him as he almost strokes the swells of Jensen’s nose, eyes, forehead, lips.  
  
He’s careful never to touch, but Jensen feels it go straight through him, the cool press of someone not really there warming something deep beneath his surface.  
  
Jared stops, hand hovering Jensen’s heart. Jensen holds his breath.  
  
His heart doesn’t stop pounding until long after Jared vanishes.  
  
\--  
  
The morning after the Aldis Fiasco, or whatever that was, Jensen’s up way too early for his own liking. Not really looking forward to facing Jared in light of recent events, Jensen pads down to the kitchen. Mom’s at the counter whisking eggs and humming along to the radio, wispy gold strands of hair escaping the confines of her scrunchie, a sign that she either just got off a shift, or just got out of bed. It might be the first time in ages Jensen is able to greet her in the morning without her having to drag him out of bed. She smiles upon his entrance, but any wry comments about him being up before noon on a weekend are stowed away. Jensen hoists himself onto the counter, letting his heels rum, and for once, embracing the feel of a sweltering morning. It’s oddly comforting.  
  
American Pie is playing. He wonders if his Mom misses his Dad and the way he was when she hears it, too.  
  
“Your friends…Genevieve and, Chad, was it?” Donna asks after a moment.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You’re with them a lot. Not that I mind, I’m glad.” Donna smiles, whisks a little faster. “You should invite them over sometime. I’d love to meet them.”  
  
There’d been a time where Jensen would have accused her of being nosy and overbearing out of spite, because the idea of his Mom being interested in his friends feels vulnerable and unsure. For now, though, he nods. “Probably after graduation, maybe? Once all the school craziness is over. My room’s kind of a disaster area.”  
  
“I hear that.” Donna laughs, Don McLean underscoring her. She sets down the bowl and heads for the fridge, pulling out vegetables and cheese. Right about now Jensen should be retreating back to his room, or maybe seeking out the coffee grounds in one of the cupboards. Instead, he catches his gaze on his Mom’s hands. They’re nurse’s hands, specific and deft in movements. Hands that are used to picking up things, packing up an entire life and not thinking twice about looking back. Hands prepared for the worst, but hands that have truly tried to do their best.  
  
His mother has never expected anything from him, nor asked that he help her with the things they carry as a family; her, Jensen and Mac.  
  
“Here, let me.” Jensen picks up the grater takes the hunk of cheddar from his Mom.  
  
“Thank you,” Donna says softly, smiling.  
  
They make breakfast in silence, switching off humming and whistling bars of American Pie, then Led Zeppelin, and then CCR, until Donna’s outright singing and Jensen is mouthing along. He dices up mushrooms and tomatoes, and Mom drops the whisked eggs into the pan. Mackenzie stomps down the stairs with bed head and the brightest smile when she sees Jensen at the counter, summoned by the smell of hot butter hissing on the frying pan.  
  
They eat omelettes on the couch in the living room in their pajamas and Mackenzie puts on The Sixth Sense from the stack of movies. Jared quietly enters, seating himself at their feet, slipping a small secretive smile in Jensen’s direction.  
  
Haley Joel Osment whispers “I see dead people”, and Jensen thinks about all the ways his life, this house, this moment, would be different if he couldn’t talk to dead people.  
  
Or, in this case, just one dead person.  
  
Mom and Mac gasp as if on cue, and Jensen tries not to count the number of times Jared looks back to see how he’s reacting to the movie. Tries not to... but he still feels the number thirty seven like Jared’s gone and tapped the number on his sternum himself.  
  
\--  
  
  
Chad and Gen are like vultures on Monday, waiting for Jensen in the parking lot when Jensen arrives at school.  
  
“Incoming,” Jared mutters in warning as the pair of them spring towards the car, but it’s no use. Gen sits right on Jensen’s lap and Chad pokes Jensen’s shoulder, whining, “Tell ussssssssssss.”  
  
“You didn’t tell them how it went?” Jared sounds shocked.  
  
“I’ve been busy, sorry,” Jensen explains. “But it was fine, we had fun.”  
  
“Oh no you don’t, I want details Mister!” Gen demands.  
  
“Yeah, Jensen,” Jared says sarcastically, and when Jensen glances over, he’s  _smirking_ , crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
Jensen kind of wants to hit him for that one.  
  
“It was fun.” He shrugs. “We had fun.”  
  
“Fun! He had fun!” Gen and Chad cheer causing several people to look over, alarmed. Jensen rolls his eyes.  
  
“Yes, and now that you have your answer, can you please get off me? I have class.” He tickles Gen until she leaps off, shrieking, and treks off as his friends gossip behind him. Jared keeps up, hands in his pockets.  
  
“Why didn’t you tell them?”  
  
“Really none of your business, don’t you think?” Jensen growls. “It just slipped my mind. I still had fun with Aldis. Don’t think for a second that means—“  
  
He cuts off, unsure of where exactly that train of thought was headed.  
  
“Means what?” Jared asks quietly.  
  
“Hey, Jensen.”  
  
Speak of the Devil.  
  
Aldis looks perfectly attractive, hair still wet from what was probably a shower in the locker room after early morning practice. His sunglasses are pushed back on his head, his smile is white, and his frame looks really good in the slightly too small athletics t-shirt he’s got on.  
  
He’s kind of perfect, but Jensen feels less than nothing when he looks at him. Can barely remember what it was like to kiss him.  
  
This is ridiculous.  
  
“Hey, Aldis.” Jensen waves politely.  
  
He sees the flicker in Aldis’ eyes dim out the second he catches on to whatever ‘back off’ vibe Jensen’s delivering. They part ways, and Jensen’s plenty aware of Chad and Gen watching him like hawks.  
  
But he’s more aware of the curve of Jared’s lips as he tries to hide his smile.  
  
\--  
  
Something’s changed, that’s for sure.  
  
The following week brings in a different tone in the way Jensen goes about his day with Jared in tow. There’s no other way to describe it, they’re moving about each other cautiously, barely speaking. Not in an effort to avoid each other, but more out of the fact that silence has started to stretch uncomfortably between them in a way that it hadn’t before.  
  
Jared’s not around as much, and his absence is painfully obvious. With Mackenzie going to friend’s houses every day after school to do homework, Jensen’s left with an empty house that once would have comforted him, but now makes him antsy. Whether Jared’s giving Jensen space or is simply preoccupied is yet to be determined. The only indication of Jared actually being there is the presence of piano notes from time to time. Jensen tries to leave it alone, but curiosity gets the better of him.  
  
Because Jared had said he only played when he was lonely.  
  
He heads up to the attic, a single room that spans the entire length of one floor, shoved full of boxes and objects covered in dusty sheets. There are a few windows on either side of the attic, but as a whole it’s stifling when Jensen enters, and it’s with great relief that he locates the AC at the farthest end of the attic, kicking it into gear with a shuddering rattle as sweat pours off of him. The wooden floor creaks under his feet, and it’s possibly the only part of the house that isn’t polished and refurbished to absolute modernity, dull in sheen and covered in dirt. His shoes leave prints in the dust like he’s walking through snow, wiping his forehead on his sleeve as he follows the noise and finds Jared, stroking the keys of the large dusty grand that stands in the center of the room.  
  
“I think it’s mine,” Jared says softly, testing a flat C key in the center that warbles in the space of the attic, struggling to find its own pitch despite the out of tune beginning. “Or was my family’s. Either way, it’s mine. What are you doing here?”  
  
“I’m just here for a change in atmosphere,” Jensen defends, walking straight for a cushion chair near the window. “Scouts honor.”  
  
This continues on for a few minutes, the two of them lapsing into silence, Jared pressing on certain keys after long beats of nothing, Jensen respectfully standing by. Not that Jensen has much knowledge of the physical structure and appearance of musical instruments, but he knows without really knowing that this is a beautiful piano, wood derived of midnight and ocean depths and empty houses. They sit for what seems like hours, Jared testing individual keys, Jensen watching an out of tune instrument trying to function and make music while still being broken.  
  
It becomes a routine they pick up, Jensen goes upstairs straight after school, and Jared plays.  
  
On the third day, Jensen asks.  
  
“Why do you like the piano so much?”  
  
Jared looks self conscious, “I’m pretty sure I used to play it. I think I was really good at it. Like I was kind of a virtuoso.”  
  
“What makes you say that?”  
  
“Because I’m not playing existing music,” Jared says simply. “I’m writing my own.”  
  
“But it’s out of tune,” Jensen puts forth. “It stopped working long ago. Any melodies you try to put into that will come out crooked and off.”  
  
“And I’m not allowed to enjoy crooked and off?”  
  
“Oh, you’re allowed.” Jensen shrugs. “But you’ll get tired of playing it eventually.”  
  
Jared drums his fingers on the last three keys, sending a trill of notes in the air that break apart, twittering birds on a summer’s day.  
  
“Maybe.” He glances up at Jensen, flexing his fingers, wrist bones poking out sharply as he makes a fist, rotates it clockwise.  
  
“But I’d like to think that any instrument sounds good with the right kind of music.”  
  
\--  
  
They’re lounging up in the attic about a week later, Jensen wedged up near the window pouring over one of Felicia’s books, Jared standing over the piano, regarding the keys like a very difficult puzzle to solve.  
  
“They won’t bite.” Jensen raises an eyebrow, peering over the edge of the large bound book.  
  
“I know that,” Jared snaps, but his fingers twitch nervously at his side. “I’m just planning what notes I want to play. I want to get this right.”  
  
“Yeah, okay.” Jensen turns back to the thick tome, eyes drooping. They’ve been in the empty house all day. The late April showers have come on strong, thick sheets of rain pouring from dusk till dawn. Jensen had been all for catching a movie downtown with Chad and Gen, but Jared protested, said rain made him feel thick and groggy. Jensen, having no idea if this was actually a thing, or Jared was just being persnickety, had conceded to hanging out all day.  
  
He’s all of three seconds from dropping straight to sleep out of boredom when Jared loudly bangs out a set of notes.  
  
“What the hell are you doing?”  
  
“Sorry!” Jared’s brow is knit in concentration. “This isn’t easy for me.”  
  
He tries the same set of notes. Slower this time, testing out the weight of the piano keys.  
  
“You’re focusing too hard,” Jensen comments, to which Jared replies by slamming down on several bass keys that echo throughout the room.  
  
“Alright then, you try playing the piano with  _no hands_.”  
  
“I’m just saying!” Jensen holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I mean. C’mon. You picked up my glasses, and hid my laundry, you  _threw my stack of CDs out the window_. Surely it’s not all that hard to play a piece of music!”  
  
“That was different. I wanted to piss you off. I had  _purpose_.” Jared rolls his eyes, the move telegraphing through the rest of his tall frame as he stands above the piano.  
  
“Okay,” Jensen gets up and goes to the back of the piano, opposite Jared. “Tell me what it is you’re trying to do.”  
  
“I’m composing,” Jared responds—as if it’s so obvious--as he resets his fingers on the chords, playing out the same set of four notes. He does it again, pauses, and then again, but each time the wrong note hits, making the chord sound off. Jared shrugs his shoulders, irritated.  
  
“You’re playing the exact same thing over and over.”  
  
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”  
  
“Look, just…” Jensen pauses, and then snaps his fingers as inspiration strikes. “Play the piece at me. Like you’ve got a…Morse code…yeah, a Morse code message or something to tap out to me, but I won’t get it if you mess up the notes.”  
  
“What’s the message?” Jared looks very much on the verge of rolling his eyes again.  
  
Crap. Jensen hadn’t thought that far ahead. He thinks of the first life threatening situation he can come up with. “I’m about to be hit by a bus. And this message is to warn me.”  
  
Now it’s Jared’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You’re quite the morbid sonofabitch, aren’t you? Have you ever considered that watching you die might kind of give me pleasure?”  
  
He’s joking, they both know that. But Jensen still laughs aloud and replies, “Since when have I ever done anything for your pleasure?”  
  
He has, they both know that, too.  
  
“Besides,” Jensen points out, leaning all his weight onto the body of the piano, “You’re never going to forgive yourself if I die and you get stuck with me in this dumb house.”  
  
“Fine,” Jared’s lips twitch. “Fine. The semi-truck ten-wheeler is coming straight towards you. Here goes nothing.”  
  
He stares at Jensen for a long moment, intense and thoughtful. In the stretch of silence, the rain continues to fall and Jared stares like staring alone will carry the message across. It’s only a little bit disconcerting. Jensen’s a half beat away from pointing out that Jared has to actually press on the keys when Jared begins to play, a few dulcet notes slipping from the body of the piano. They repeat, over and over again as before, but this time they are pleasing to Jensen’s ear. He glances down at the sleek black of the piano, feels the notes vibrate against his fingertips and when he looks up Jared shrugs in an apology.  
  
“I have to repeat the notes. It’s all I can do.” He flexes his hand, resettling it over the keys. “One measure at a time. This way, I won’t ever forget the piece.”  
  
“I wasn’t complaining,” Jensen says quietly, but Jared’s already returned his focus to the music, straining so hard to concentrate that if he had pores Jensen’s sure he’d be sweating.  
  
Jared plays the first chord very slowly, then the one after that, and then the most recent one. The cadence of notes is awkward, long gaps in between two or three notes as Jared slowly sets his hand. It’s more of a catastrophe than an actual piece, but Jensen’s hardly listening. He’s too caught up in the serene expression on Jared’s face, the way the pinched and often eager expression has smoothed out into lucid concentration. Even scarce notes, jumbled and out of rhythm, are soothing to Jared.  
  
Jensen thinks that there’s something off about this picture; the ghost at the piano and the boy watching him play. Even with stumbling fingers Jared is more alive and present in the room than Jensen himself is. It’s unfair, Jensen thinks, when Jared has so much to offer the world, but isn’t allowed to anymore. What does Jensen offer? What does Jensen even  _do_? He’s not good at things the way Jared is, he doesn’t crack jokes or try to help people for no other reason than wanting to.  
  
There’s so much good in Jared, it seems to radiate from the gray of him, even as he jangles his foot on the pedal and bites his lip and squints at the keyboard.  
  
“I wouldn’t mind, you know.”  
  
“Mind what?”  
  
“If you got hit by a bus, and didn’t move on. I wouldn’t mind if you were here. With me.”  
  
A shade of charcoal fills in Jared’s cheeks, and if Jensen were an expert on ghost emotions, well, he’d go so far as to say that Jared just blushed, before redirecting his attention back to the piano as if nothing happened. Jensen looks his fill a bit longer, the corners of his surprise slack mouth turning upwards. He catches himself, hopes Jared doesn’t notice how long he’d been staring.  
  
There’s so much good in Jared. And only Jensen will ever get to see it.  
  
Jensen’s never been one to believe in luck, but it suddenly occurs to him that he might be the luckiest most undeserving sonofabitch in the world.  
  
\--  
  
After some discussion with Mom, Jensen finally decides that it might be a good idea to invite his friends over for the afternoon. In all their months of hanging out, Jensen had never thought to ask them to come over. Mainly because it was never something that had come up, and naturally he would just assume that they didn’t want to. But they’d practically begged to see ‘Casa De Ackles’, as Chad coined it, and by the time Jensen pulls onto their street, Chad and Gen are chatting animatedly in the seat next to him, making up headcanons about what Jensen’s house is going to look like, and in which wall the dead bodies will be hidden.  
  
“I still say floorboards,” Chad says knowingly, “the bodies will most definitely be hidden in the floorboards.”  
  
“Ha, ha.” Jensen rolls his eyes. “You two are hilarious.”  
  
“Four months of friendship, Jensen. Four. And we’ve never seen your house. You’re either the messiest person in the world or you have bodies in your walls. It’s the only explanation.”  
  
“So hilarious…” Jensen grumbles, and they crack up as he pulls into the driveway.  
  
“And here we are, the Ackles Household.” Jensen stops the engine and waves to the house with a flourish of his arm, glancing over his shoulder to see his friends’ reactions to the sight of the gigantic house.  
  
Genevieve bursts into tears. Full out, broken sobbing.  
  
“Wha--” Jensen gapes as Chad unbuckles his seatbelt and pulls Gen into his lap, shushing her and smoothing her hair down as she cries into the crook of his neck.  
  
“Ackles, I don’t want to have to hit you man, but this better not be a fuckin’ joke,” Chad murmurs darkly over the crown of Gen’s head.  
  
“What did I do? I….is it the house? I live here so…”  
  
That statement seems to accomplish nothing but make Gen cry harder, and now Jensen’s really starting to freak out.  
  
“It’s not that man, it’s—“  
  
“Our friend Jared.” Gen has raised her head from Chad’s shoulder, makeup smeared, nose runny. She looks ridiculous but Jensen’s never felt less like laughing. “Our best friend Jared lived here, in this house.”  
  
 _Our best friend, **Jared**._  
  
If there were bones or tissue holding Jensen’s stomach up before this, they have dropped out and into the abyss. Jared. His stomach rolls with foreboding and he knows, he  _knows_  how this story ends, but at the same time he doesn’t know, has no fucking clue.  
  
He blinks at Chad and Gen, their pale sad faces, wonders how he looks by comparison. He’s halfway between screaming “I don’t want to know” to “Goddammit,  _tell_  me”  
  
“When we were thirteen. Jared. I guess he was going through a rough time. He was taking a bath one day. And he---he--” Gen cuts off, burying her face back in Chad’s shirt and breaking out in a fresh wave of emotion. Chad rubs circles on her back, looking more serious than Jensen has ever seen him.  
  
“He drowned,” Chad finishes, kissing the top of Gen’s head and pausing for a long moment. “Slit his wrists, and drowned. We don’t exactly know what happened.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jensen blurts, scrambling for words that he doesn’t deserve to tell them because he’s not entirely sure he’s sorry, and that’s the worst part. “I’m sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have your best friend die.”  
  
In all the times Jensen has considered Jared’s death, he’s never once thought about the effects of it, the people he left behind, the people who discovered his body. It doesn’t matter that he’d never considered it, because no amount of consideration could have prepared him for this.  
  
And nothing, nothing in the world, could have prepared him for what Chad says next, narrowing his eyes.  
  
“Die? What the fuck are you even  _talking_  about?”  
  
Jensen’s back tracking faster than he can keep track of. He’s gotten way too used to just speaking his mind in front of Jared, can’t apologize enough for being so inconsiderate. Talking about death feels like almost an everyday thing when a ghost is your best friend.  
  
“He didn’t die,” Chad reassures, squeezing Gen just a bit tighter to him. “Not really. Jared’s alive. He’s been at Tulane Hospital for five years now, in a coma.”  
  
The entire world blots out, and Jensen forgets to breathe.


	11. Chapter 11

“How is everything, gentlemen?” The kindly waitress in the mint green floral dress has roller skated over to their booth.  
  
“Fine, thanks.” Jensen smiles, forcing himself to be the charming and likeable one, for once.  
  
Chad is glaring down at his chocolate milkshake like it said something to personally insult him. They’re sitting in a diner and Gen is in the bathroom washing her face.  
  
“How--” Jensen swallows the words back down. There’s simply no question he can possibly ask because ‘possible’ was thrown out the window five minutes ago. There’s no  _how_. There just is.  
  
Jared’s a ghost. But Jared’s also alive.  
  
“Look,” Chad says, unemotional in his expression except for the savage way he stirs his milkshake. “I like you Jensen, you’re our friend, but I shouldn’t be telling you this. You shouldn’t need to hear this, this was before your time, I don’t want to ruin your good mood, ‘cause it ain’t a fuckin fairytale, that’s for sure.”  
  
Jensen wholeheartedly agrees, but the sinking of his stomach has anchored him to the bench unable to do anything but listen.  
  
“You can’t imagine what that was like. He was my best friend…and Gen. Gen loved him. Even though we were just thirteen.”  
  
“How’d it happen?”  
  
“Gen found him. We were supposed to go down to the park just down the road for Nature Scouts. I sat outside in the car with her Mom. She went upstairs to his room and there was water leaking out from under the bathroom door. And he was there in the bathtub. Drowned. Bleeding. He wasn’t breathing.”  
  
There’s an expression on Chad’s face that simply states Not Here; the clear blue of his eyes clouded as he stares down at his hands, visibly nauseated.  
  
“I heard the screaming all the way from the driveway. I figured Jared was chasing her around the house or something, roughhousing like we normally did. She came running out to the car covered in blood and sopping wet. I heard the screaming, but I didn’t know. Gen’s Mom’s a teacher, she was able to administer CPR and stem the bleeding until the EMTs could arrive.” Chad scratches at his nose, shaking his head. “Gen and I just sat at the bottom of the stairs. She wouldn’t stop shivering. We were just kids.”  
  
“That sounds horrible.” Jensen’s never heard anyone sound as fake as he’s sounding right now. He feels for Chad, and Gen, he does, but there’s a part of him which knows nothing but relief that he has Jared the way he does. He’s an asshole, an absolutely selfish asshole for it. It’s a miracle Chad hasn’t seen it on his face.  
  
“It was horrible. It  _is_  horrible. You can’t imagine what that was like. He was our best friend. And you’ve never heard about it because we don’t like to talk about it. Because the whole ordeal was fuckin’….” Chad breaks off, nostrils flaring. “The family had to move out of the Harris Estate, into this tiny ass apartment in the city to afford the hospital bills. They would have pulled him off life support a long time ago, but Jared…he’s not brain dead. He has enough brain activity that he could someday, randomly, just wake right up. So his family hasn’t given up on Jared, they’ve just given up on everything else. They work their asses off. Jeff—Jared’s brother—is even studying medicine at community college just so he can try and figure out a way to help Jay. They’re such good people, Jensen, they’re so kind. It’s horrible. Gen and I…She still won’t talk about it. We visit him when we can. We just don’t talk about it.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“For me, it’s because Jared is my best friend. And if he hadn’t ended up in a coma, Gen and I….he’d be the one with her by now. Not me. That kid was the Golden Boy, he was nice to everyone he ever met and smart and talented….a fuckup like me? I never would have had a chance, I’m not stupid. And feeling grateful that I am with Gen makes me feel like the biggest asshole on the planet. But I don’t regret it.”  
  
“So that’s why it took you so long,” Jensen realizes. “To ask her out. You were afraid she’d never stopped liking Jared.”  
  
Chad shakes his head. “I would never be that much of a dick to ask. And I’d never want to have to justify her getting over him. Even if we were so young.”  
  
Sweet chocolate malt fills Jensen mouth and he swallows the realization that Chad is a really good guy. A loyal best friend to someone who—by technical standards—isn’t even alive. Out of respect to Jared, he’d waited years to make a move on Genevieve. It‘s so unselfish, and just like that, every stupid ass hair brained devil-may-care move Chad’s ever made is more endearing to Jensen than ever before.  
  
Of course he was Jared’s best friend; loyal and caring and fiercely protective. There’s not someone worthier of Jared’s friendship, of Jared, but that’s sad now.  
  
“What are the chances he’ll ever wake up?” Jensen asks, trying to force an edge of wishful thinking into his voice.  
  
Chad shrugs, shredding the napkin in front of him into fine strips and dousing them with milkshake droplets from his straw. “The doctors sometimes report spikes of brain activity, sometimes so high they say he’s going to wake up, or respond to stimuli. But it never happens. As long as he hangs in, though, we’ll keep waiting.”  
  
They’ve been waiting almost five years. Five. The probability of Jared actually coming back from that is impossible. And yet…  
  
There’s so much that makes sense about Jared’s origin. Why Jensen couldn’t exorcise him; Jared wasn’t a ghost. He was attached to the world, he couldn’t just be banished. The idea of Jared growing older, his appearance altering. It alters because somewhere, miles away, Jared has a body. Jared has breath and a heartbeat and eyes and hair that gets dirty and hands that get clammy. Has something that isn’t just a projected image in the air.  
  
Underneath Chad’s narration is the mental image of Jared, Jared as Jensen knows him, lying in a hospital bed. Seventeen years old going on eighteen, sleeping. He tries picturing a family that loves him, best friends that visit him, talk to him.  
  
Yet here Jensen is, getting Jared all to himself.  
  
If it weren’t so traumatically terrible and ironic Jensen would probably be laughing.  
  
\--  
  
Jared’s perched on the couch next to Mackenzie when Jensen gets home.  
  
“You’re home late,” Jared remarks, but doesn’t look too frazzled by the fact. “Just in time, though. We just started watching Casper.”  
  
“I’m watching Casper. Want to come sit with me?” Mac asks.  
  
Wordlessly, Jensen walks over to the other side of Mackenzie and plops down. Jared smiles at him, and Jensen feels himself wither under the glow of it.  
  
“Ghosts are creepy,” Mackenzie whispers, shoving her tiny body underneath Jensen’s arm. “I’m glad they’re not real, aren’t you?”  
  
Jared waggles his eyebrows and winks. Jensen nods, tight lipped.  
  
“Everything okay?” Jared asks.  
  
How can he keep this a secret? How can he even look Jared in the eye and think ‘yes everything’s okay’. Yes he did not just spend the last two hours talking about Jared’s live body. Yes he’s not having some kind of morality crisis. Yes he doesn’t feel like lighting himself on fire with how much of a selfish dick he feels like for not saying anything.  
  
‘How’ is all he wants to know, and yet it’s effortless to tick his head once up and down, for Jared to accept the lie and return to watching the movie.  
  
Mac and Jared are, naturally, immersed in the movie within seconds, gasping and laughing at the exact same parts.  
  
He’s so screwed.  
  
Because honestly, what is there to do? Tell Jared? Jared’s not ready for that. Jared’s incredibly excitable with new information, bursting lightbulbs or making things fall over. He’d probably burn the damn house down if Jensen told him his body was still alive.  
  
Even if his body was still around, how alive was  _alive_? Alive enough that Jared could go back and continue on as if nothing had happened? Or not alive enough so that he dies the second he enters his body? Technicalities aside though, it’s not something Jensen thinks he’s ready to go through with, let alone tell Jared about.  
  
He needs time. Time for research and data gathering and calling on Meggie. More importantly, time for Jared. Not that that’s the priority here. But if Jensen is to tell Jared, he definitely wants to spend as much time as possible with him first.  
  
Jensen needs time for Jared. Time with Jared.  
  
Meanwhile, anyone else who’s ever loved and cared about Jared has to wait.  
  
If there’s a hell, Jensen is headed straight for it as soon as he dies.  
  
“What were you like when you were alive?” Kat asks Casper, the two of them sitting on a lighthouse and staring out to sea.  
  
“I was...I was...I don't remember.” Casper responds.  
  
“You don't remember anything from your life?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“So... Nothing?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“See, I like this telling of the ghost story. Casper doesn’t remember anything about his past life. Much more realistic,” Jared whispers over Mackenzie’s head, then frowning. “Though I’m not sure how I feel about the tail.”  
  
Jensen forces out a laugh that latches claws in his lungs, wringing the guilt straight from him and he’s drowning. He had wished Jared were alive, had made it his fucking birthday wish. And now that it’s here, with the very real possibility of Jared’s disappearing attached, Jensen wants nothing to do with it, wants to do nothing than take the wish back.  
  
“Is that bad?” Asks Casper.  
  
“No. It's just kind of sad.” Says Kat.  
  
Sad. This whole fucked up situation is sad. Jensen’s luck is sad. Jensen’s life is sad.  
  
Jensen is sad.  
  
“I wonder why you don’t remember anything.” Kat says.  
  
“Hm. Guess cause when you’re a ghost, life doesn’t matter that much anymore, so you forget.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Jared scoffs. “Casper you dumbass, that’s not how it works. I happen to love life, I didn’t forget because it didn’t matter. Who wrote this thing?”  
  
Jensen rolls his eyes, feels no need to point out that ten seconds ago Jared was praising the film for its factual representation of the dead.  
  
“I’d remember life if I could. Hell, I’d  _be_  alive, if it were up to me.” Jared pouts.  
  
“When you think about it, it’s actually quite unfair,” Jared adds, less riled up and sarcastic, more thoughtful. “Life matters. I do miss it. Hell, I’d give anything to have it back, even just to remember something other than snippets. It does matter.”  
  
Jared lapses into silence, watching the exchange between ghost and girl ensue. Jensen should do the same, but he’s watching Jared’s face, waiting. He’s seen this movie a million times, knows it well enough to know which part is coming up and when. And sure enough:  
  
“Kat,” Casper whispers on the screen, gliding over to her as she falls asleep, kissing her cheek, “Can I keep you?”  
  
Jared’s gaze snaps to Jensen’s, and right  _there_. Corporeal or not, Jensen feels the shift in space, something physical move him, centered down to the intersection point of their eyes.  
  
It zings through Jensen like a livewire, something Jensen wants to chase after. At the end of the day, though, there’s nothing to chase that he can touch. And the zing fades to a twang in the base of his sternum, like his heart is punching him with each beat.  
  
This could be a totally different situation. Jared could be here, pressed next to Mac and making her laugh with his asinine comments. He’d be warm on the couch next to them. There’d be a scent on his skin and texture to his body. Jensen could reach across the space and take his hand.  
  
Jensen could keep him. Or maybe Jared would die the second he got back to his body, and it would be like Jensen never had him in the first place.  
  
Moment there and gone, Jensen shakes his head and directs his gaze back to the screen.  
  
“Jensen, do you believe in ghosts?” Mac asks after a minute of watching in silence. “Osric Chau told me they’re real. And that if you don’t get rid of them, they’ll steal your soul while you’re asleep.”  
  
“Osric Chau sounds like a liar.”  
  
Mac shrugs. “I told him to prove it. He couldn’t. So I made him eat a handful of mud.”  
  
Chuckling, Jensen tugs her closer. “That’s my girl.”  
  
“But do you? Believe in them?” Mackenzie asks again, voice small.  
  
He doesn’t know what to believe anymore. Because there’s a boy sitting on the couch next to Jensen who smells of nothing and feels like everything. He watches Jensen quietly, like he’s waiting for something. Jared’s got a body, an exit route, and Jensen’s never felt less inclined to give it to him. Jensen would feel like laughing at this whole thing if the situation weren’t so sad.  
  
“No, Mac.” He ruffles her hair; trying to take stock in something he can actually touch and be close to, and hating himself for needing to. Mackenzie squirms, groaning  _‘Jensen!_ ’ Her hair smells of kid’s strawberry shampoo, and there’s a flower sticker on her forearm.  
  
He locks eyes with Jared once more, feeling the  _zing_  straight down to his toes.  
  
“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”  
  
\--  
  
Jensen takes Jared to Meggie’s the very next day. He doesn’t bother to call ahead, but she opens the door like she’d been waiting for them, the almond corners of her eyes widening only slightly as she lets them in the apartment.  
  
“Well come on right in. You must be Jared.”  
  
Jared gapes like a fish, mouth opening and closing and attempting to work around sounds and Meggie throws her head back with melodic laughter, filling the room with it. Jensen would be doing the same, but he spent the entire night staring at the ceiling, sick to his stomach, and he’s starting to get that he shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore.  
  
“He’s here?” Felicia jumps up excitedly from the kitchen table. “Where?! Where is he?”  
  
“About two paces from Jensen’s right shoulder,” Meggie answers, striding forwards, placing her hands on her hips and peering up at Jared. “You’re a lot older than I expected. The way Jensen’s described you made you seem like you were a child.”  
  
Jared glares at Jensen, who shrugs guiltily. Felicia walks through Jared until she’s standing right inside him, the grey tinge of him protruding from her head and shoulders.  
  
“I can feel him,” she says, practically bouncing with excitement. “Just a few degrees cooler than the rest of the room. Hi Jared!”  
  
Jared laughs, looking down at where her nose is sticking out from his chest. “Hi Felicia.”  
  
“He says hi,” Jensen translates.  
  
“Oh man, I’m grabbing the Ouija board. You and I are going to talk friend, like  _actually talk_. Mainly about how you’ve lived with this kid,” she jerks a thumb in Jensen’s direction, “for all these months without committing serious homicide. Meggie, we’ll be in the bedroom, try not to get jealous.”  
  
Jared casts a backwards glance at Jensen but trots after Felicia, listening as she jabbers away. The door slams shut, leaving Jensen relieved and exhausted in the silence.  
  
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” Meggie says gently.  
  
“Pot, meet Kettle. Why didn’t you mention you could see ghosts?”  
  
“Because it wasn’t information you needed to be privy to. Not till now.” Meggie turns on her heel and heads for the kitchen, body on autopilot as she moves about, a ballerina on point as she reaches for mugs and tea leaves.  
  
“You haven’t slept.” It’s not a question. “What’s bothering you, Jensen?”  
  
Meggie lights a cinnamon candle, and Jensen, weighed down by months of not being able to discuss this with anyone but parties involved, purges every little detail into Meggie’s waiting ear. He’s sure she’s gleaned some of the story bits from Felicia, but being able to talk about all of it, or, most of it (he leaves out the finer details, the night in the canyon, the date with Aldis, etc.) is an immense weight off his back. Meggie doesn’t offer advice or scolding, she simply listens. And when Jensen gets to the part about the coma, she merely tips her head back, staring at the ceiling.  
  
“I’d worried as much.” She sighs. “When you’d spoken of him moving things…but you couldn’t exorcise him. It didn’t make sense. And now I know.” She turns back to Jensen, walks over to him and touches his face, the look on her face almost wizened. “I am sorry.”  
  
Jensen tries to stare her down, but in the end he has to look away, change the subject to anything but pity for himself. He doesn’t deserve it.  
  
“Jared seems happy, though,” Meggie says gently after a few minutes. “He smiles a lot. Mostly at you.”  
  
“You can…you can  _see_  him, and you didn’t even need a spell! How’d you--”  
  
“How’d I know I was a medium?” Meggie shrugs, stepping back. She places a filled kettle on the stove, takes a minute to breathe deeply, the two of them listening to the sounds of tourists below in the shop, bustling around, cars outside in the street. Felicia’s voice echoes all the way from the bedroom, “It’s not a hard question, Jared. Just pick one! What’s your favorite food!?” Meggie smiles, the expression wistful, and then looks back at Jensen.  
  
“When I was a little girl, we used to live out on the bayou. My Daddy, he built this beautiful house in the woods, we had all this land. We had chickens in our front yard. I played in the swamps after school. We didn’t need money, not really. But Daddy worked a job in the city for construction, just so we could pay taxes and stock up on a few items from time to time. We were happy. Daddy loved Mama, and Mama was beautiful. She smiled all the time.”  
  
“2005, as I’m sure you know, was the year Hurricane Katrina struck.” She leans back, expression not so much upset as mournful. “It destroyed most of our land, wrecked the house. Daddy was at work when Mama and I were forced to evacuate. We didn’t use phones, so he heard the news and came back for us in the car. He got stuck in the road, and the water was rising so fast. He couldn’t move, and a telephone pole fell on the car, killed him instantly.” Meggie cups her body into the round of the counter, leaning into it for a moment and breathing. “I was ten.”  
  
So was Jensen when he lost his Dad.  
  
“The funeral happened. Mama and I moved into the city. And I started seeing Daddy about, oh, a few weeks after he died.”  
  
“Did you freak out?” Jensen asks.  
  
“I was ten,” Meggie says flatly, like that is explanation enough. “I was ecstatic. I thought he was back, I thought…” The clear brown of her eyes clouds over and the kettle boils to a whistling pitch. “As soon as Mama came in the room and saw me talking to an empty chair, she knew what I was. Clairvoyant, medium, ghost whisperer, call it what you will. A family trait, apparently, carried down from some distant Grandmother. Something like that.”  
  
“You still see your Dad?”  
  
Meggie nods slowly. “I think he’s waiting for Mama to catch up to him. He doesn’t talk often, usually just checks in to see how I’m doing. I can’t always see him. But I know he’s there, I feel him.”  
  
“How so?”  
  
“I used to think it was part of my ability,” she says, lifting a mug and turning off the stove. “But I’ve learned it’s just something that’s human. You love someone, and you lose them, but they leave their mark. Wounds, scars, and in that way you can never quite stop feeling them when they’re close. Don’t you feel that around Jared?”  
  
“I don’t love him,” Jensen says, abruptly, defensively. “And I haven’t lost him.”  
  
“You might yet, though.” Steam billows from the spout as she pours a cup for him.  
  
“But there’s a way, right? A way to save him so he doesn’t die?”  
  
“I honestly don’t know. There isn’t exactly a precedent. I’ve met my fair share of ghosts, but they were just that, ghosts. Their bodies were deceased. I can’t say what will happen if you put Jared back into his body, Jensen, I really can’t. Putting him back in would probably go fine, but at this point, and considering how long he’s been out, I don’t think the chances of him coming out alive, let alone functioning, are very high.”  
  
“Right.” Jensen blinks very rapidly, pressing his palms to the scalding hot mug, grounding himself in the sensation of tangible pain, something he can physically grapple with.  
  
“Are you going to tell him?” Meggie asks.  
  
“Would you?” Jensen scoffs.  
  
“Did Felicia ever tell you the story of how we met?” When Jensen shakes his head, she smiles. “I was in my first year at university. I’d graduated school early, working double time to get my degree. It was exam week, I was stressed to hell, and nearly drooping over my book when this…” she waves her hand, exasperated, “pixie, came over to me and offered to take me out for a coffee. I’d spent my whole life avoiding relationships, because people with my ability usually live lives marked by death, and I didn’t want to share that with anyone. But I went to coffee anyway, because she was polite and sweet, only to find out that not only did she respect the supernatural world, she was kind of obsessed with it.” Meggie huffs, shaking her head in wonderment.  
  
“She is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. But if I had to give her up so she could be happy, live some other life, marry some other girl, then I would.” Meggie brushes her lips back and forth against her tea cup, inhaling the scent. “The only other person I’ve ever seen look at someone the way that boy looks at you is my father with my mother. And if you’re stupid enough to mess that up by withholding the truth, then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”  
  
Felicia chooses that moment to come careening down the hallway, pink in the face and looking like she might wet herself in excitement. “I love him even more now. Can we keep him? Forever?”  
  
Jared totters in after her, looking a bit bewildered, a side effect of hanging out one on one with Miss Felicia Day, Jensen knows the feeling all too well. Felicia reiterates the entire Ouija board story, half out of her mind with excitement, and Jensen drinks his tea down, refusing to meet Jared’s curious gaze.  
  
They stay for dinner, because according to Felicia, Mama Devine’s gumbo is to die for. Meggie begins setting up what looks like a battle in the kitchen, ingredients out in an assembly line, and Felicia retreats downstairs to close the shop, and returns with an older woman, one Jensen recognizes from the photographs on the mantle in the living room. There are grey hairs where there were once only black, but her eyes are quick, settling on Jensen in an instant.  
  
“You look like my Jeffrey Dean,” she says, gaze intense.  
  
“That’s Jensen, Mama. Jensen, this is Loretta.”  
  
Jared settles somewhere behind Jensen and they sit, watching as Loretta tells Meggie what to add to the pot in mixed Creole and Cajun French. Curious despite himself, Jared comes over after a while and starts nudging spices towards Meggie’s hands when she asks for them, Felicia guffawing in delight.  
  
Felicia puts a record on and the kitchen is at once filled with spices and the mixed crooning of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.  
  
 _The way your smile just beams  
The way you sing off key  
The way you haunt my dreams  
No they can’t take that away from me_  
  
“C’mon, Ella,” Felicia says as the pot simmers down to a light boil, and Jensen is handed his first bowl of gumbo. “Time to dance.” She twirls Meggie around the space of the kitchen.  
  
“Why Louis, I thought you’d never ask.” Meggie’s laugh brightens the room like a streak of sunlight spilling in through the dark. Loretta smiles and pushes back and forth in her rocking chair, Jared claps his hands in time with the music, smiling at Jensen over the counter.  
  
 _We may never, never meet again  
on the bumpy road to love  
Still I’ll always, always keep the memory of  
The way you hold your knife  
The way we dance till three  
The way you’ve changed my life  
No, no, they can’t take that away from me_  
  
The gumbo is indeed delicious, and Jensen describes the flavor to Jared as Meggie and Felicia spin around the kitchen, the rotating centerpiece of a pretty music box. Jared listens, eyes eager, that twinkling shade of gray that Jensen is sure isn’t actually gray. He wonders vaguely if Jared remembers what color his eyes used to be, but feels the question would be too weird to ask, especially now. With Jared smacking his lips overdramatically, making Jensen choke and sputter with laughter on the soup. Especially now, Jensen thinks, because if he could just have this, keep this moment, he’d never complain again. Never think a negative thought, say a harsh word. He just wants to have this feeling in his chest, and have it here to stay.  
  
It’s almost too much to bear, the notion that he might have to say goodbye to this, to happiness that’s somehow always tied back to Jared, always Jared.  
  
Jared starts wearing out pretty fast after that, the day’s events tiring him and Jensen nods as he says, “Bathtub feeling coming on strong. Give my goodbyes to Felicia. And my apologies, I didn’t realize how tired I was until--”  
  
He vanishes. Jensen wonders when he’d stopped being relieved and started being disappointed whenever that happened.  
  
The night ends too soon, and Jensen is sent home with a giant Tupperware container of Gumbo for Jensen’s Mom, and instructions from Loretta to not let it sit for too long.  
  
Jensen relays the goodbyes from Jared, and Felicia promises she’ll bring her Ouija board to work next week for further conversation with Jared, before ruffling Jensen’s hair and heading inside. Meggie lingers behind, watching Jensen carefully.  
  
“Is this the part where you tell me I’m being a selfish bastard?”  
  
“No. This is the part where I tell you to either do research, or you keep your mouth shut tight.” Meggie warns, leaning close, “And to get over your emotionally stunted bullshit and tell that boy what he means to you.”  
  
Jensen shakes his head, retreating towards the truck needing to clear his head of cinnamon and jazz music and boys with gray smiles. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
“You do know, Jensen,” Meggie sighs. “And I think that’s the part that sucks the most. By the time you can say something, I’m worried that it will be too late.”  
  
\--  
  
Jensen does research, because at this point, it’s the only thing he can do.  
  
What he comes up with isn’t good.  
  
On the magic side, there’s not much to it, according to Meggie. All Jared has to do is get in contact with his body and he’d be fine.  
  
It’s the part after that that’s worrisome.  
  
Because on the slight  _slight_  off chance that he did live, there are a number of things that could keep Jared from having a high quality of life. Muscle atrophy, brain damage, loss of speech and motor function, of short term and long term memory; the possibilities of ailments far outruns the possibilities of possible non-ailments.  
  
It’s better, Jensen decides, to keep Jared as a ghost. He’s fine the way he is, speech intact, memory not important.  
  
Does it occur to Jensen that this might be selfish? Yes. But he’d also rather be safe than sorry. He’d much rather have a lively Jared as opposed to a dead one.  
  
So he keeps it a secret, stores all the evidence and research in a separate file. From the archives in the library, he gathers a newspaper headline dated five years back. “Boy, 13, attempts suicide in bathtub of Harris estate”.  
  
The article is brief, just barely mentioning that Jared Padalecki is in the hospital, comatose, and is very missed by his friends and family. It ends up in the private file Jensen gathers, printed out essays on coma patients, recovery times, brain damage caused by drowning, he puts it all in there, stores it under his bed and only opens it by the time he’s sure Jared’s gone to the bathtub.  
  
Graduation happens in a strange blur of joy and embarrassing photos. Mom cries, demands that Jensen take a picture with his friends. Chad and Gen wrap their arms around Jensen from either side of him in front of their school lockers, leaning forward to kiss him on his cheeks.  
  
The evening is full of bright and shiny things, a gilded diploma that hits Jensen in a wave of relief, a slew of confetti and balloons and overly sentimental speeches that he won’t remember in years to come.  
  
He thinks, though, that there are some things which will stick with him. His mom hugging him and Mackenzie piggy back riding him out of the school. Throwing his cap up in the air, Gen’s laughter and Chad’s screaming filtering in through the cheers, the look on Jared’s face when Jensen walks up to accept his diploma, the pang it sets off in Jensen’s chest.  
  
“We’re so proud of you, Jensen.” Donna wipes at her eyes. “You made it, honey. And you did so well.”  
  
The ‘without your father’ goes unspoken, but his mom’s pride is a ray of sunshine leaking into him. He gives her one last hug and kiss before she goes over to Gen and Chad’s families.  
  
“C’mon, Jenny,” Chad’s cap is hanging half off his head, tassel swinging, “let’s go paint the town.”  
  
Jensen glances towards Jared but Jared waves them away, “I’m feeling the bathtub tug coming on. I’ll see you at home, I think I’m gonna—“  
  
He vanishes.  
  
‘The town’ turns out to be the top of Chad’s house, complete with rooftop observation deck and enough height that they can see almost the entirety of Singer. ‘Painting’ involves nothing less than sitting on the roof with a bottle of honey whisky and ginger ale shared between the three of them, taking swigs and laughing back the burn.  
  
They talk away the moon and talk on through the sunrise, poking fun at Chad for being a lightweight, pillowing their heads on their graduation gowns. Breakfast of hot beignets the next morning and coffee, and it gives Jensen a fresh sense of peace. Like maybe he doesn’t have to leave this place. Like maybe he could stay like this, with Gen and Chad during the day, with Jared at night. Like maybe he doesn’t have to be alone.  
  
He drives home midday, humming to himself, really starting to feel his life slip into something comfortable and welcoming, for the first time.  
  
‘Mac’s at Renée’s House, please pick her up at four’, is what the note on the front door reads. Jensen sets it down, groping for the water pitcher and Advil, only just starting to feel his dull hangover begin to kick in. The pain is somehow pleasant though, with the knowledge that he’s not the only one feeling it this morning, that somewhere in this washed up town there are two friends of his who probably feel even worse.  
  
“Jared?” Jensen mounts the stairs, feet dragging, cap hanging loosely from his fingertips, starting to feel really sweaty in his graduation gown and clothes from yesterday. He opens the door to his room, ready to tell Jared all about the taste of honey whisky and Chad’s drunken ramblings.  
  
Scattered papers are strewn across the floor, lying draped over chairs and piles of clothes like discarded candy wrappers.  
  
What the—  
  
In the center of the room stands Jared, fisting his hair with one hand, eyes wild, shoulders heaving, as if the sudden realization of the absence of breath has left him scrambling to get it anyway, practically hyperventilating.  
  
Jensen toes the line of the doorway, hesitant, waiting for Jared to speak.  
  
“How long have you known?” Jared whispers, locking eyes on Jensen, a little bit scary with how intense he looks.  
  
And then Jensen spots one of the scattered papers on the floor, a copy of the article in the Singer Chronicle. ‘Boy, 13, attempts suicide in bathtub of Harris estate’.  
  
Shit.  
  
“Were you even going to tell me?” The corners of Jared’s mouth turn downwards. He’s not angry, Jensen realizes with a start. No, the crinkle in his brow and the way he’s pointedly looking at the floor. He’s hurt. “Or were you just going to keep this to yourself forever?”  
  
“I.” Jensen digs the heel of his palm against his forehead. “I was working my way up to it. It’s complicated, Jared, I’ve been doing my research. The whole situation--”  
  
“Jensen, I’ve been thinking I was dead for five years. What’s more complicated than that?” Jared kicks at the papers, some of them flying off the bed as if a gust of wind rushed through the room. Jared looks up, eyes blazing, at Jensen. “Have you seen me? Have you seen my body?”  
  
“No!” Jensen exclaims. “I couldn’t…I wouldn’t. Too much risk of being seen. Your parents check up on you a lot, according to Chad and Gen and--”  
  
“Chad and Gen? How the fuck do they--” Jared cuts off, blinking off into space. “My best friends. Of course.”  
  
“Jared…” Jensen is walking forward, pleading with his body, but for what, he can’t say. He wants to be able to say something to take the expression off of Jared’s face, quietly closed off, unresponsive and lifeless. The knowledge that he put it there pierces Jensen deep, more so than any guilt felt previously.  
  
“I’m alive,” Jared says softly. “I can  _live_  again.” The sadness vanishes in an instant and Jared leaps up, sending the files flying again as he sashays around the room like a child. “Jensen! I’m alive! I’m living! All you have to do is take me to the hospital and put me in my body and--”  
  
“No, Jared,” Jensen says firmly.  
  
Jared is halfway through careening off of the bed in a somersault to the floor when he stops. “I’m sorry, I think I mistranslated the idiot you’re speaking. Repeat again?”  
  
Jensen exhales sharply, hot air blowing through his nostrils. “I’m not taking you back to your body, or anywhere near that hospital.”  
  
“What do you mean? Stop kidding around.” Jared kicks his feet up on the bed and reclines backwards. “God, the first thing I’m going to do when I wake up is eat candy. Lots and lots of candy.”  
  
“I’m not kidding around,” Jensen overlaps. “I’m serious. There are too many risk factors. We don’t know what’s going to happen if we put you back into that body.”  
  
“It’s not ‘that’ body, Jensen, it’s  _my_  body. What else would I do if not wake up and live?”  
  
“You could die,” Jensen says simply, feeling the words hit him in a visceral gutting punch. “You probably would die.”  
  
If he’s waiting for that miniscule detail to change Jared’s mind, he’s disappointed when Jared merely replies, “Okay? So?”  
  
“ _So_?”  
  
“So I die, then what? I hate to break it to you, but it’s going to be a huge improvement to the situation now.”  
  
That stings, and Jensen rallies back. “Oh, so you’d rather be dead than be here with me?”  
  
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Jared says simply. “I am not at rest. Spirit. Ghost. Soul. Whatever I am, this is not where I’m meant to be. You know it, I know it. Hell, why did we spend all this time trying to find a way for me to cross over, if not to get me properly dead? We made it all this way, and what, now that we finally found the cure to the common Limbo, you don’t want to follow through?”  
  
“But that was before--” Jensen bites his sentence in half. He hasn’t got the words or the right state of mind to go blurting this crap out, even if it’s true.  
  
That was before I knew you. Before you forced me to hang out with Chad and Gen. Before we became friends. Before you told me about stars and astronauts. Before you mattered.  
  
“I know that it’s not easy, on you or me.” Jared shrugs, putting a smile on. “I mean, you and me we’re...well, we’re something that’s important. But I’ve got to move on. Properly. So just, please, take me to the hospital.”  
  
It’s then that Jensen snaps. Selfish bastard he may be, but this is one thing,  _one thing_  he wants to keep. He’s not giving up the one thing he’s got going for him. It’s not fair. Petulant though that may be, it’s the only thing that allows him the gumption to grit his teeth and look at Jared with a stony expression as he says, “I’m sorry. But I can’t do that Jared.”  
  
Jared flies across the room at Jensen, and Jensen leaps out of the way just in time to see Jared barrel through the door into the hallway before walking right back through, bristling.  
  
“You selfish dick! You can’t--this is  _my_  afterlife. You don’t get to just decide what’s good for my well being after not giving a fuck about me for months, alright? Now take me to the hospital.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Jensen! Take me to the goddamn hospital!”  
  
“I said no!”  
  
“And I say yes!” Jared makes another dive for Jensen’s body, like the only goal in this moment is to cause Jensen as much physical pain as he can. Jensen dodges, tucking and rolling. “Why won’t you give me that?”  
  
“Haven’t you considered the possibilities? There’s a) dying, b) waking up with no memory of who you are or what you’re doing in the hospital, c) living in a body that’s been atrophying for five years! Now I don’t know about you, but those don’t sound like such great options!”  
  
“Have you ever considered that maybe I  _want_  to die?” Jared yells, standing at his full height and glaring down at Jensen.  
  
“What are you saying?” Jensen doesn’t want to hear this. Wants Jared to somehow take those words back because it’s his worst nightmare come to life.  
  
“I’m saying that I  _want_  to rest. That I’ve been wandering around this house for five years and yeah, we’ve had fun, but maybe I’m tired, Jensen. I’m so tired of not being able to smell things, or touch or taste. I’m sick of watching everyone move on when I can’t. I exist on the outside of the looking glass, Jensen, and I’m sick of it! So yeah, oblivion, abyss, heaven, hell, whatever, just give it to me!”  
  
“Goddammit, what part of ‘no’ don’t you understand? I’m not going within a mile of that hospital. And neither will you. It’s too risky, and you may be willing to pull whatever kamikaze scheme you need to get your rocks off and accept that you’re actually dead, but I’m not. So get it through your transparent skull that that’s never going to happen. You’re staying here, Jared. Until we find another way. End of discussion.”  
  
Jared twitches like he might throw himself at Jensen again, but he settles, that same closed off expression dropping over his features. It’s almost horrifying, the juxtaposition to the open and smiling Jared he knows, and this Jared. Quiet Jared, pensive Jared, emotionless Jared.  
  
Jared steps back, palms held up in a gesture of defeat, voice falling on Jensen’s ears louder than anything Jensen’s ever heard, even though he’s just barely whispering.  
  
“You don’t want to help me? Fine. I’ll stay a ghost. I’ll stay here. But don’t expect me to stick around to keep you company. You’re not going to solve my unfinished business? I don’t care. Do what you want. I’m gone.”  
  
He walks in the direction of the tub, his silence speaking volumes. The urge to reach out and grab his sleeve is unbearable.  
  
Jared thumbs at a smudge of dirt on the wall, and his lips quirk. And he is smiling, and it’s the most terrifying smile Jensen has ever seen, devoid of any light or happiness, bared jowls of a wounded wolf.  
  
“You’re on your own, Jensen, exactly like you always wanted. All alone. How apropos, when you’re so good at it.”  
  
Jensen blinks, and Jared is gone.


	12. Chapter 12

 

Jensen is pond scum.  
  
He moves about the house like he deserves to sink into the floorboards, tail tucked between his legs. Slow and minimal movements with as little noise and disturbance to the air as possible. He doesn’t play music, moves and breathes like a living ‘I’m sorry’. He doesn’t leave any lights on once he leaves a room and he takes short showers. He stops leaving out his laundry and he doesn’t go near the stack of ghost movies downstairs near the TV.  
  
These apologies he leaves out for Jared may or may not have an effect on Jared. But Jensen doesn’t know, because he lost the right to know, because he is scum.  
  
Just really, slimy, absolutely revolting scum, with no other purpose than occupying the lowest part of the pond, that’s what Jensen is. He’s wrong, he knows he is, but is not willing to budge on the subject, and even if he was, he doesn’t think Jared would be up much for chatting about their feelings.  
  
Jared’s pissed, most likely sleeping off the anger at Jensen. He’s never been gone for multiple days at a time, but then again, Jensen’s never fucked things up so royally.  
  
He goes to bed each night with a room that only holds the sound of a rattling AC unit in the window. Occasionally he’ll glance over his shoulder and whisper a soft ‘Jared?’, because he’s a glutton for punishment and the shadows are tall and lanky if he looks away quickly enough.  
  
The silence stretches on for two weeks.  
  
Jensen starts dreaming about drowning again.  
  
\--  
  
The diner is empty when Jensen walks in, save for a few of the old timer regulars. Jensen’s already sweat through his t-shirt and when he sees Chad and Gen are in the corner booth, he plans to do nothing more that drown himself in a tall glass of sweet tea and company that isn’t his empty bedroom.  
  
Gen’s head is bent towards Chad, whispering in his ear.  
  
“Alright lovebirds, cut it out,” Jensen complains, throwing himself into the seat across from them.  
  
He knows the second Genevieve raises her head that something is wrong. Because Gen’s a terrible liar and Chad won’t let go of her hand.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Jensen asks.  
  
Gen grimaces, blinking rapidly and nodding at Chad. “You tell him.”  
  
“It’s Jared.” Chad sucks in a breath that covers the sound of Jensen doing the same. “We think…the Doctors think he’s finally dying,” Chad says, watching Gen’s face as he speaks, rubbing soothing circles on her hand.  
  
It doesn’t make sense. Jared was fine. Jared  _is_  fine.  
  
But Jensen has also not seen Jared for two weeks. Jensen has not heard so much as a sound nor seen a flicker.  
  
“What do you mean finally dying?” Jensen grips the edge of the table, trying to keep himself from throwing up.  
  
“His vitals are declining.” Gen speaks up now, eyes continuing to well, voice pitching higher and softer. “They’ve been pretty stable over the last five years, with occasional spikes of brain activity. But his organs are starting to shut down, his temperature is dropping. He’s,” her breath is watery, “also not breathing voluntarily anymore.”  
  
Gen turns her head into Chad’s shoulder, tiny fingers gripping his shirt, as Jensen’s stomach rolls and pitches. What had he done? What the fuck had he  _done_?  
  
“The Padaleckis want to wait a few more days, see if his condition improves. But at this rate, it looks like he’ll be off life support by tonight. We’re gonna head over there before they--” Chad begins blinking rapidly, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his palm, swearing hoarsely. “Fuck.”  
  
The table rocks back and forth as Jensen bolts up and runs out of the restaurant, muttering hurried apologies to his friends. They’ve got no clue that his apologies are for everything, every selfish choice he’d ever made in regards to Jared, but he gives them freely anyhow.  
  
\--  
  
He can’t find Jared anywhere. He yells around the house, nothing. Panic starts to truly set in as Jensen realizes that this might be it. This might actually be it. He dials his phone, pacing in the foyer.  
  
“Jensen?” Felicia answers the phone on the second ring. “What is it?”  
  
“It’s Jared,” Jensen wheezes, feeling light headed. “I lost him, I can’t. He won’t come out of hiding, I don’t know where to look.”  
  
“Hang on--” Felicia’s voice cuts off and he hears her hollering across what Jensen assumes is Meggie’s apartment. There’s a minute of terse murmurs exchanged before Meggie speaks, “Jensen? Are you still there? Jared’s gone?”  
  
“Meggie. I need a spell. Anything to get him back, I need, I need--” Jensen’s throat constricts with panic and he leans forward, puts his head between his knees.  
  
“He’s dying, Meggie. His body, it’s dying. And I can’t find his spirit. What happens if his body dies without his spirit?”  
  
“He’ll be in oblivion,” Meggie replies.  
  
“What do you mean, oblivion?”  
  
“Think of it this way, Jensen. There are three worlds, empirically speaking. There is here, there is limbo, and there is the place beyond the veil. And then there are the cracks in between. If a person dies in their body, they can get through the veil just fine. If they have unfinished business, the spirit stays behind until the business is solved, and then they pass on. But if the body dies and spirit is somehow disconnected, the person wouldn’t be able to pass from one world to the next. They would, instead, fall through the cracks, into a place called oblivion.”  
  
“And what happens in oblivion?”  
  
“It is difficult to explain.” Meggie sounds hesitant, but she pushes forward. “Allow me to put it simply. Here, you are alive. Beyond the veil, you are dead. In limbo, you’re a ghost. But in oblivion, you are nothing.” Meggie pauses, inhaling and exhaling slowly. “If Jared does not die inside his body, he cannot properly pass over from limbo to the next world. But there will be nothing tying him here to this world, either. So he’ll be nothing. He will cease to exist, entirely.”  
  
“So he’ll be dead.”  
  
“It’s not the same concept.” Meggie huffs. “The dead can be contacted, summoned, spoken with. The dead can watch over us, visit us in dreams. But to be in oblivion is to not exist at all. Death may not be life, but it is still a state of existence, just as limbo is. But if Jared doesn’t die attached to his body, he’ll have no way of crossing over and no way of remaining here. He’ll fall through the cracks, no trace left but memory.”  
  
Dead Jared is still dead, but ultimately he’s still  _Jared_. Picturing a Jared that doesn’t exist is inconceivable, makes Jensen’s stomach roll with anxiety.  
  
“How do I save him?” Jensen pleads, pressing the phone to his ear. “Even if he moves on to the next realm and dies I don’t care but he can’t  _not_  exist. How do I save him?”  
  
“You need to wake his spirit up, Jensen,” Meggie says firmly. “And you need to wake his spirit up  _now_.”  
  
\--  
  
Playlist #8: It’s My Party and I’ll Whine if I Want to, is blasting through the entire house.  
  
He’s pulled out all the stops, tossed out his clothes, disorganized his books, kicked the covers off his bed so they drag on the floor. Nothing, not a single gust of air in the room. He sings ‘American Pie’ at the top of his lungs and dances through the kitchen. He eats a handful of gummy bears, moaning orgasmically and talking loudly about how great they taste, and still nothing.  
  
Either Jared’s really good at pretending he can’t hear him, or Jensen’s not being loud enough.  
  
Anxious, Jensen’s just about to turn on the shower and start drawing vulgar shapes in the fog on the bathroom mirror when he spots the tub in the corner, looking as pristine and untouched as it was the first day he saw it.  
  
Of course. Jensen steps right up to the tub and lowers himself in, fully clothed. He presses his toes up against the faucet and drums his fingers on the rim of the tub, singing low, ‘I ain’t afraid of no ghosts’ under his breath.  
  
Come and get it, Jared.  
  
Three….two…  
  
Scalding water explodes from the faucet and the shower curtain is ripped off its hooks, flying about the room pell-mell. Jensen leaps out just in time to see Jared burst forth from the tub, sitting bolt upright like a mummy rising from the tomb. Jared gasps, seeing the gushing hot water and miscellaneous bathroom objects flying about, and then notices Jensen standing there.  
  
“You’re okay,” Jensen breathes, not realizing how scared he was until he feels his knees shaking. “You’re okay, thank  _fuck_.”  
  
“What the fuck are you on about, and why the hell were you in my bathtub?” Jared spits, sending the water sputtering off. “Did I not tell you not to come in here after the first incident? Did I not just tell you to leave me alone, Jensen? Are you stupid?”  
  
“I’ve left you alone for two weeks Jared, don’t you think that’s enough time to go and pout?”  
  
“Two weeks, I--” Jared cuts off, frowning, before jumping out of the bathtub and standing before Jensen. “Are you saying I was gone for two weeks? I was gone for only five minutes. You’re pulling my leg.” He looks up, seemingly reading Jensen’s expression in a heartbeat. “What is it? What’s happening to me?”  
  
Jensen reiterates what Meggie told him on the phone, watching Jared take it all in without so much as a blink.  
  
“So I’m here waking your ass up to take you off to the hospital. It’s time to get you well and proper dead,” Jensen jokes, scrubbing a hand through his hair, hating the completely light tone he’s able to use.  
  
Jared opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but closes it. “Alright, let’s go.”  
  
They’re halfway out the front door when Jared stops abruptly, sounding shaken. “Jensen.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The threshold. I can’t cross it.”  
  
“What do you mean you can’t cross it?”  
  
“I mean I’m getting the bathtub pull, only it’s double strength and I’m exhausted without even hardly trying to move,” Jared snaps, blinking from side to side of the door frame like a caged animal.  
  
It’s when Jared steps back to let Jensen by that he notices it, sunlight catching in the crook of Jared’s arm. Except where there would normally be the sturdy outline of an arm, there is a shape blurred at the edges, fading into the background of space, salt dissolving in water.  
  
“Your arm….Jared, you’re fading.” How over dramatic it feels to say that. But Jared is, in the very literal sense of the word, fading, dissipating into nothing. “You must not be strong enough to leave the house. Even with the bond.”  
  
“Oh,” Jared says pointedly. “Isn’t that swell.”  
  
“Christ, the one day I actually want your ass around and you can’t come with me?” Jensen raises a middle finger towards this sky. “The universe is a dick.”  
  
“Too bad you don’t have some handy dandy ghost carrier to put me in,” Jared quips. “Well, it was nice knowing you, thanks for the memories. Do you think they have cable TV in Oblivion?  
  
“What did you just say?” Jensen asks, staring hard.  
  
“I said, I hope they’ve got cable TV—“  
  
“Before that, dumbshit.”  
  
“Oh. A ghost carrier. A ghost purse. We could have used that. Shame,” Jared surmises, then pauses, expression shifting nervously. “Why are you looking at me like that? Is my face melting too?”  
  
Jensen’s dialing Meggie before Jared even finishes the first question.  
  
\--  
  
“Absolutely not.”  
  
“Oh c’mon—“  
  
“No  _you_  c’mon! I’m not going to violate you—“  
  
“It is a perfectly consensual bind, Jared, if the host submits.”  
  
“Don’t call him that. He’s nobody’s host and I’m not going to possess him, okay?”  
  
The trifecta of Jared versus Meggie and Jensen isn’t much of a battle. Jared has his arms crossed over his chest stubbornly, lifting his chin defiantly. He’d objected when Meggie said she was on her way, he’d objected when Felicia and Meggie had come striding in through the front door, and he’s objecting now, obstinate and angry, as they set up camp in Jensen’s room.  
  
“Jared, were there another way to get you to the hospital, I would do it in a heartbeat.” Meggie’s hands work in methodical movements as she pulls her mess of curls into a bun high on her head. “But we have no choice. ‘Licia, you got my book?”  
  
Felicia walks through Jensen’s door and Jared’s body, carrying Meggie’s spells. “I don’t know how I feel about this. We don’t know what will happen if Jared goes inside Jensen. He can barely handle it when Jared touches him!”  
  
“There’re no reasons Jensen shouldn’t be able to do this on his own. I’m just here to talk him through it. It’ll be okay.” Meggie sends Felicia a brief smile, taking the book and squeezing her hands briefly. “I wouldn’t lie to you, would I?”  
  
“You’re exactly like Jensen, stubborn as an ass. Of  _course_  you would lie to me.”  
  
Meggie pecks Felicia’s forehead in a brief intimate moment and Jensen takes the opportunity to glance over at Jared, who’s still looking like he wants to bolt. Meggie steps back and takes a piece of chalk out of her bag, pacing around the room and drawing swirling patterns on the floor around Jensen and Jared. The lines span out in a spider web fashion, connecting Jensen’s feet to Jared’s. Felicia follows Meggie’s lead, taking visual cues to work around Jared.  
  
“There has to be another way.”  
  
“There isn’t, Jared.”  
  
“Jensen, this could  _kill_  you. There’s a reason possession isn’t exactly a hobby people take up. We don’t know what could happen.”  
  
“I didn’t say it was going to be a barrel of fun, Jared. But if it’s a way to save you, I’ll take it.”  
  
Jared’s eyes flicker to the floor, watching the lines of chalk being traced around him, a strait jacket, and Jensen clenches his jaw, angrily.  
  
“Look, you said you were tired of being here. You wanted me to let you go, didn’t you?”  
  
“I did. I do.” Jared watches Felicia as she draws. “I just can’t imagine existing in a place where you’re not, is all.”  
  
“Well I can’t imagine you not existing, period.”  
  
The door slams as Jared looks up sharply, the wounded puppy look in his expression hitting Jensen with the force of a wave. He keeps saying these things, sentiments, secrets,  _feelings_ , to Jared like he has all the time in the world. Like by somehow saying them, he’s not making everything a thousand times worse.  
  
“We’re ready.” Meggie rises, looking as nervous as Jensen’s ever seen her, which makes him all the more worried. “We must move quickly. Time is of the essence.”  
  
Jensen sits on the floor, crosses his legs and settles his palms on his knees, Jared mirroring him after a long bout of stubborn silence.  
  
“Alright, Jensen,” Meggie stands a few feet behind him, crouched low. Her voice is comforting, enough to lull his pounding pulse to a calmer beat. “Repeat after me.”  
  
\--  
  
The pain of possession comes as both a surprise and not a surprise at all.  
  
Jared lurches forward, flying straight at Jensen, flailing wildly about and for a second it looks like a head on impact is in store. But Jared doesn’t fly through Jensen, but  _into_  him, osmosis through the surface of his skin.  
  
There’s a sensation of someone cracking open an egg on Jensen’s head. His whole frame seizes as the cold drips over his head from the top of his skull, tendrils of permafrost racing along the xylophone of his vertebrae, extending and wrapping over each of his limbs like a glove. Drowning, submersed in a snow bank of the coldest temperature. Breath flees Jensen’s lungs as he tries to remember higher brain function. It had been bad when Jared had touched him, but this is worse, this is  _inside_  him, a cohesive cold that wraps around his muscle and sinew, pulling him tight tighter tightest until he’s positive he’s turned into a human popsicle.  
  
It’s not until he wonders exactly how long he’s going to be feeling like this when he notices something else. The cold, the painful jagged cold, but there’s something else. Present in his mind, and without asking Jensen knows there’s something in his head. It feels like a premonition or a sixth sense, not a physical thing he can name, but simply a presence in the back of his mind, something latching onto each and every thought.  
  
 _Holy hell, you’re hot._  
  
“Jared?” Jensen sits upright, opening his eyes and blinking at the now empty space across from him. Meggie and Felicia are standing over him, looking worried. Meggie whispers something to Felicia and Felicia walks to Jensen’s closet. It’s hard to hear them, because there’s a torrent of sound in his mind. Jared’s voice in his mind, formulating words in a mixture of voice and memory that permeates him, out of control.  
  
 _I don’t mean hot hot, but I mean. You’re warm._  
  
“Perks of the whole pulse thing, I guess.”  
  
“Is that Jared?” Meggie asks. “Is he okay?”  
  
 _Never mind about me. Are you okay, Jensen?_  
  
“I’m okay. He’s alright,” Jensen says. “I can feel him…it’s…it’s weird.”  
  
There’s a shuffling in the back of his head, like a stack of playing cards being looked through. It takes him a moment, and then—  
  
“Are you going through my memories?”  
  
 _You were in drama club freshman year of high school? Nice._  
  
“Cut it out!” Jensen snaps, the echo of his voice washing in with another frigid wave that robs him of oxygen. His legs buckle until Meggie is there, supporting him from his left side. Felicia is at his other side in a second.  
  
“Jesus, he’s freezing, Megs! How long can he go like this?”  
  
“Long enough to get Jared to the hospital, if he doesn’t make detours,” Meggie answers grimly, and Jensen is vaguely aware of something being yanked over his head, a thick bulky ski jacket from his closet. A scarf being wrapped around his neck. Wool socks hugging his toes. “He’ll get to the hospital in time, and then he can receive proper medical care.”  
  
 _Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—_  
  
“It’s fine,” Jensen whispers to Jared, who sounds shaky and apologetic. It takes a minute to realize that the only reason Jensen is picking up on those emotions is because he’s feeling them. Jared’s fear and wonderment and anxiety, it’s all inside him.  
  
Which means if Jensen can feel what Jared’s feeling, the opposite must be true for Jared.  
  
He tries thinking of something, anything, but you know what they say when you’re not supposed to think about elephants. Jared’s delving through his mind, darting in and out of corners, searching through memory and thought and feeling and it’s the most intrusive and intimate thing he’s ever experienced. He gets that Jared can’t really control himself, like a kid in a candy store, awed by the experience alone, and he knows that Jared’s trying his best to be polite, respectful, but it’s still a strange feeling of exposure, akin to all the dreams about being naked, magnified a thousand times.  
  
He feels Jared’s thoughts brush his, much like strangers bumping in a crowded hallway, snippets of phrases that Jensen’s not entirely sure are meant for his ears.  _Cute kid_  and  _sad_  and  _his dad what a dick_.  
  
Jensen can’t help but find the irony in all of this. He’d wanted nothing but to be left alone before all of this nonsense started, and now here he is, laid bare in the worst possible way for the last person he could ever want inside his head and heart.  
  
Not to mention the fucking  _cold_.  
  
“We need to get moving,” Jensen says, feeling his bones strain, thin ice on a freezing lake, cracking under pressure. “Now.”  
  
“I’ll get my car keys.” Felicia’s out and heading down the stairs when she stops in the hallway.  
  
“Um, Jensen?”  
  
“Yeah?” Jensen’s teeth have started chattering just slightly.  
  
“Your mother’s home.”  
  
Jensen’s skull nearly splits open with the sound of Jared swearing up a storm. He mentally prods at Jared’s would be side, shushing him as he tries to focus. A glance in the mirror tells him all he needs to know. He looks miserable, wrecked, easily halfway to being dead with pneumonia. He’s going to take two steps down the stairs and his mom is going to know that something’s wrong with him, and she’ll never let him out of the house.  
  
And then it’ll be too late.  
  
“Distract her,” Jensen grits to Meggie. “I can drive by myself. I can. But the last thing I need is for her to worry. Tell her a lie, whatever lie you need to tell. I’ll sneak out the backdoor.”  
  
Meggie swings up on her toes and kisses Jensen’s cool forehead, looking straight into him and whispers softly, “Jared, you listening?”  
  
 _Tell her yes._  
  
Jensen nods, and she stands tiptoe again to whisper, “Be safe, Jared,” before darting down the stairs after Felicia. There’s a rounding chorus of ‘oh hi! You must be Donna!’ in the living room as he tiptoes down and slips out the back door, bundled in the jacket and yanking on gloves.  
  
\--  
  
Its boiling hot outside, mirage of sweltering heat rising from the asphalt as Jensen pulls out of the driveway, but he’s never been colder in his life. He tries distracting himself, but the only other thing he can think about is Jared inside his head, who is still quietly sifting through all of Jensen’s memories and thoughts.  
  
“Please stop that.”  
  
 _It’s kind of hard to stop when I’m surrounded by it_. Jared pauses, then a shudder zips up Jensen’s spine, like there’s someone else sighing, cold breath echoing through the frame of him.  _This is so weird_.  
  
“Thanks,” Jensen says sarcastically.  
  
 _I didn’t mean it like that,”_  Jared defends.  _I guess I’m just not accustomed to all of this. I usually see you from the outside, from my perspective. Do you always feel this way?_  
  
Jensen opens his mouth to say ‘like what’ as a thread of self loathing constricts his throat for a small second, a base mimicry of his own emotions sent at him, a telepathic telegraph.  
  
 _Like this-- that, I mean._  
  
Jensen hasn’t got the guts to answer that question, so he casts around quickly for a topic that Jared hasn’t already sifted through in his mind.  
  
“Why did you try to commit suicide?”  
  
 _We’ve been over this Jensen, I don’t know. All I know is the bathtub and drowning. Everything else, the slashed wrists, the time of day, everything, I got from the article._  
  
“Yeah, but why would you try to kill yourself? I talked to Gen and Chad, you were a pretty fuckin’ happy kid. Apart from the slash marks on your wrists, there were never any signs of self harm done previously, no out of the ordinary behavior. So what was it? Why would you kill yourself?”  
  
 _You’re asking these questions as if I haven’t been pondering them for the last five years that feel like forever. I DON’T KNOW JENSEN._  
  
Teeth chattering, Jensen turns out of the driveway and heads towards the main road, and then brakes, hard.  
  
Drowning. Mother fucking  _drowning_.  
  
“Shit.” Jensen gropes for his phone and dials as fast as he can.  
  
 _Jensen, what are you—_  
  
“I dreamt about drowning,” Jensen blurts, listening to the numbers punching in as the phone dials. “Months ago, before I knew who you were. I dreamt that I was drowning.”  
  
 _Which would make sense, seeing as I—_  
  
“Hello?” Chad picks up the phone.  
  
“Chad! Is Gen there? Put the phone on speaker!”  
  
“Yeah, we’re still at the diner, douche-canoe, where’d you go off to that was so important?”  
  
 _Douche-canoe? Jesus Chad…_  
  
“Can you just put her on speaker?” Jensen half shouts, feeling schizophrenic, with one voice in his head and another in his ear.  
  
There’s a weird ambient noise added, the diner, perhaps, and Gen says, “Well, if it isn’t the stand up douche-canoe himself.”  
  
“Gen--” Jensen cuts off as his head swarms with the blizzard of affection for Gen that feels like the cusp of recognition, but there’s hardly any time to consider it. Even at a weakened strength Jared’s emotions are powerful, ice welling up inside him. He shoves Jared to the back burner, “Gen, I need your help?”  
  
It might be the chattering of his teeth or the desperate tone he’s taken on, but Gen says, all serious, “Yeah, okay, what is it?”  
  
“Who else was in the house the day you found Jared’s body?”  
  
“You motherfuck--” Chad’s voice cuts off as Gen shouts, “Why the fuck are you asking me this?”  
  
“I can’t explain. I just need you to trust me. I think there’s more to the story and--”  
  
“Jensen,” Gen sounds tired, and sad, the tone of her voice is wobbly as she speaks. “Chad told you everything I know. I came over a few hours after school. Jared usually hung out with the babysitter, but the babysitter said he had stormed up to his room as soon as he got home. I walked into his room, and the floor was wet. I went into the bathroom. And there he was.”  
  
“There has to be something that you’re forgetting,” Jensen pleads with his voice for her to remember. “Something, any tiny detail. Did anyone dislike Jared? Did his parents have any enemies? Were there any creeps hanging around your school?”  
  
“Jesus, what is your problem? Why are you trying to drag this up? He’s dying Jensen! You think I want to rehash my best friend’s suicide attempt?”  
  
“I’m just trying to help--”  
  
“I think you’ve done enough. Look, Jensen, I get it. I do. But that’s all I know. There was no one else at the house besides Megan and Danneel. I don’t even think that Jeff got home until--”  
  
“Danneel? Danneel Harris?” Jensen’s system floods with adrenaline, spark of warmth flooding back into his fingertips. “How do you know Danneel?”  
  
“She was babysitting Megan. She always babysat Megan on schooldays before Jared’s accident.”  
  
“Chad!” Jensen shouts. “Chad are you still there?”  
  
A pause, and then Chad’s surly tone. “Yes.”  
  
“Jared’s hospital room number, what is it?”  
  
“He’s on the fourth floor, room 412. But I don’t understand what this has to do with--”  
  
“Go there. Now.”  
  
“We were already planning on heading over after eating anyhow. What’s this about?”  
  
“I can’t explain,” Jensen says. “You just have to trust me. I promise I’ll explain.”  
  
 _Tell him you swear on your mothers spit you’ll explain,_  Jared instructs abruptly.  
  
Jensen doesn’t have time for questions, he does it. “I swear on my mother’s spit.”  
  
There’s a gasp on the other end of the phone, the sound of Chad breathing, and then a quiet, “We’ll be waiting for you in the room. Just…try not to scare the family.”  
  
The line goes dead.  
  
 _You going to tell me what that was about?_  
  
“The dream, Jared, the dream. I was drowning, but I was also fighting back. I was reliving your death, or whatever, I was fighting back. I was trying not to drown.”  
  
 _So?_  
  
“So somebody was holding me down.” Jensen pumps the brakes and pulls a violent u-turn in the center of the highway. “And I think Danneel Harris knows exactly who it is.”


	13. Chapter 13

 

For the record, Jared is firmly opposed to the plan at hand.  
  
He can see it all spelled out in Jensen’s head, weird as that is, the bullet points and picture diagrams of exactly how Jensen plans to storm into Danneel Harris’ house and demand to know all the details of the day Jared died.  
  
It’s insane. It’s idiotic. It’s just plain stupid.  
  
And it’s exactly the kind of thing Jensen would do.  
  
 _You idiot,_  Jared thinks, mentally poking at Jensen’s brain,  _this is not what matters right now. We need to get me to the hospital before you freeze to death._  
  
“It’s unfinished business. If someone murdered you, if someone held you down until you drowned, then cut your wrists to make it look like a suicide, that’s class A unfinished business.” Jensen sounds iron-clad in his resolve, and Jared can not only hear it with his ears—Jensen’s ears—but in his head, their head. Every move Jensen makes is directly wired to Jared’s own substance, so in this, he sees Jensen’s determination, brilliant and golden.  
  
 _What does it matter that I have unfinished business?_ Jared asks, trying not to get distracted by the streak of annoyance that flares through both of them.  
  
“You can’t cross over without tying up your loose ends. If you’re going to die, you’re going to do it the right way.”  
  
 _I didn’t know you cared that much about the particulars of getting rid of me._  
  
Jensen snorts, and Jared feels the way he’s biting down on their tongue. Jared knows he’s holding back, but he also knows that pressing the subject isn’t going to do anything but make Jensen argue and waste energy. So Jared quiets, letting himself settle like smoke on water in Jensen’s mind and body, breaching muscle and sinew and bone and trying not to revel in the mere fact of  _life_  in him, pulsing and breathing and feeling. He’d probably be able to enjoy this more, if it weren’t for the simple fact that ‘this’ is killing Jensen from the inside out.  
  
Not to mention Jensen’s mind, which is a whole vault of treasure unto itself. Jared has been attempting restraint as much as possible, but it’s hard. It’s like looking at the evidence board to an unsolved murder, one can’t help but glance over the aged photographs, the physical scraps. Jensen’s trepidation pulls Jared back like a bit to a horse, so Jared treads carefully. He has no way of assuring Jensen that none of this matters to him. That he doesn’t care about the fact that Jensen cried for days after Donna moved away with him and Mackenzie. Nor about the blank faced stare of Jensen’s Dad as Jensen hugged him goodbye, like he didn’t care, like he couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge the freckly kid who just wanted to be seen by his hero. Jared doesn’t judge Jensen for the jacking off thinking about Mark Pellegrino in the ninth grade and he doesn’t judge Jensen for the fact that he kind of liked kissing Aldis Hodge.  
  
Because these memories, they’re facts, notations and stats on Jensen’s life. They are not Jensen. So Jared takes it all, every mistake and experience and all the self deprecation and loathing in between, with a grain of salt. Because Jensen— _my Jensen_ , he thinks, for how much longer he has to be selfish—is so much more and less than all the shit he’d been through.  
  
He tries not to feel that possessiveness too strongly for Jensen to sense it, but Jensen’s heart (their heart) is pounding just the same. As always, Jared is—both literally and metaphorically—transparent to Jensen.  
  
\--  
  
They arrive at Danneel’s mansion in the span of a few minutes, Jared’s anxiety fluctuating inside Jensen with each passing road sign, and Jared can feel the reciprocating headache that neither of them chooses to complain about.  
  
 _We don’t have to do this._  Jared pleads, as they get out of the truck and step into sweet, sweet warm sun, and even as Jared begs he’s sucking in that air like it’s last breath, savoring the scent of sweet grass and thick hot air amidst goose bumpy skin.  _We could just put me back in my body and let me die._  
  
“You’d be stuck here. Besides, we don’t know if you’re ghost or spirit or soul. I’m not going to risk you becoming nothing.” Jensen’s voice, for all of its authoritarian tone, is warm too.  
  
Jared’s squirming, aware of the taste of cotton on the roof of their mouth, uncomfortable and stifling.  _If this gets you killed, I’m never speaking to you again._  
  
The joke is glib, but the blazing sun is barely enough to warm even the tips of their ears.  
  
“Jensen!” Danneel Harris is all smiles and Southern Gentility when she opens the door, a wall of air conditioning spilling out into the hot air and making Jensen shiver. Jared makes himself small as Jensen stands as tall as possible, trying to retain all pretense of being fine, feeling fine. She casts his attire—the ski jacket and the gloves in the middle of June—an odd glance, but doesn’t remark on it. “C’mon on, darlin’!”  
  
Danneel Harris is odd, and Jared’s seen her enough times to know that teeth that white can’t be natural. The unease in his gut isn’t helping things either, but they step into the house; a close replica of his own, but definitely more lavish and decorative in style. There’s a bit too much material modernity in it, like Danneel is trying to make the place look more like a house in Malibu than a house in Southern Louisiana.  
  
Jared’s never seen Malibu before, and he realizes that the observation was Jensen’s.  
  
“Have a seat. Can I get ya’ll some cool lemonade?” Danneel ties her hair up, looking sweaty even with the AC down to at least sixty five. Jensen’s teeth chatter a few times. Lemonade’s the last thing they need. Maybe some hot chocolate instead.  
  
 _Jensen—_  
  
“I’m good, thank you, I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions.” Jensen’s a god-awful liar, his voice gets too happy, barely sounds like him at all.  
  
 _Jensen I don’t think—_  
  
“What about, sweet pea?”  
  
“Well, ma’am,” Jensen lifts his chin with the usual ‘give no fucks attitude’ that he has always had. Jared groans loud in the back of his mind. “About the Padalecki family, actually.”  
  
Danneel chokes on her lemonade. Jensen and Jared smirk.  
  
“Who, dear?”  
  
“The Padaleckis,” Jensen continues. “They lived in the house oh about…five years back? Had three kids? Apparently they knew some friends of mine, you remember them right?”  
  
Danneel nods, looking pale.  
  
“Yeah, my friends, they knew their youngest son. Jerry? Jerome? Jared?”  
  
The sharp clicking of Danneel’s heels as she rises to her full height sounds menacing, but she nevertheless smiles brilliantly and says, “Are ya sure ya don’t want some of that lemonade? Fresh batch!”  
  
“You know what, I will, thank you!” Jensen grins, and Jared can feel the sharp rush of satisfaction, smearing tangerine across the canvas of Jensen’s mind, but Jared’s already looking about. This place should be ringing a bell, it has to ring a bell somewhere.  
  
There’s a diploma settled on the mantelpiece a few yards away, next to some old family photographs. Stamped, gold leaf embellishing the border, Harvard Undergraduate…  
  
Danneel click clacks around the corner and Jared’s staring at the diploma so hard his eye sockets ache and there’s a tugging in his gut, there is, but it’s not telling him to go to the bathtub.  
  
It’s telling him to get Jensen the hell out of there, right now.  
  
 _Something’s wrong, Jensen, something’s really wrong_.  
  
“Look,” Jensen whispers, forcing back Jared’s panic like they’re arm wrestling inside his head, “she had to have known the guy, or at least seen him. There’s no reason we can’t press her for more information.”  
  
“Would ya like a mint sprig in it, sugar? It makes the flavor pop.”  
  
“Sure thing, ma’am,” Jensen calls, rubbing his hands together to create friction, seeking warmth. Jared tries his best to let Jensen have most of it. Harvard Undergraduate. Harvard. Undergraduate. Why is it that---  
  
Jared pulls any and all excuses out of his ass. Because he needs Jensen to get out of here, because he needs Jensen to be safe.  
  
Because he needs to know that Jensen will be able to live, if not with him, then for him.  
  
 _We’re wasting time. You’re wasting time. My body…your body..._  
  
“We’ll get there in time. I promise.” Jensen soothes in seafoam green, and it would be comforting save for the way Jared’s sixth sense is making hair rise on the back of their neck.  
  
“Oh, dear, unfortunate as it is, I’m afraid ya ain’t going anywhere.”  
  
Jensen turns them around to find themselves staring down the barrel of a gun.  
  
“Nice, isn’t it?” Danneel’s smile is cherry red as she backs Jensen against the door. “Colts are usually popular among women, they’re compact and efficient. Me? I’m more of a Smith & Wesson girl myself. They say the S&W 500 is the most powerful handgun in the world. I’ve never tried to find out through practice. I prefer to seize the opportunity in the moment.”  
  
Jared goes off like a firecracker, he can’t help it, rattling and jarring and banging against the walls of Jensen’s head, yelling at him to move, to run, to do something. He swears up and down that he’ll burn all of Jensen’s CDs, bleach all of Jensen’s jeans, any threats or bargains he can, but Jensen’s got an entire body full of attention, and none of its trained on Jared.  
  
Jensen just glares at her. Danneel sighs, looking bored. Keeping the gun trained on him, she walks around, over to the fireplace, where a plaque is mantled.  
  
“See this?” Danneel taps a lacquered nail on the glass. “My college degree. Business and Economics, Harvard Undergrad. I was the first in my family in years. Oh sure, my family had money, we had status. But we were always Louisiana forever, and nothing else. Harris women were known for pumping out babies and catering to her husbands. But I was smart. I wanted out. I wasn’t going to be a high school dropout or washed up housewife like my Mama. I was going places. I was Valedictorian.”  
  
“I babysat the snot-nosed Padalecki kids my senior year. It looked good on my resume, and they paid. It was fine. But you get stressed. I was taking AP courses and working and doing volunteer work when my acceptance letter from Harvard came in. I was so excited, you can’t even imagine. I was finally getting out. I was leading up to finals week. I hadn’t slept in days, studying up to make sure I stayed Valedictorian. I had to stay awake. I had this boyfriend, he hooked me up with some meth. The really clear stuff, woke me right up. I could go for days on a hit.”  
  
“So this one day I come to the Padalecki household to watch Megan, same as usual, and I’m coming off forty eight hours awake and I really just need a pick me up. So I nip up to the bathroom and do a line or two off the sink. Megan was downstairs watching My Little Pony. I didn’t even hear Jared come up the stairs.”  
  
It slams into Jared like someone’s throwing shards of glass at him, fragments of memory that might be his, or simply Jensen’s own imagination. They picture it all without even trying, the image of a younger Jared, blinking confusedly at the high school Valedictorian snorting meth off his bathroom sink. They imagine the chase, the pleas, the bathtub filling with water and splashing sound and struggle for breath, and bleeding, so much bleeding.  
  
Jared only remembers the drowning. He doesn’t need much else.  
  
“He said he wasn’t going to say anything. Wouldn’t tell a soul. But I wasn’t stupid.” Danneel laughs sharply, drumming her fingers on the curve of her hip. “I wouldn’t dare risk it. Not when I was so close to getting out, not when I was almost gone from this hell hole.”  
  
“You murdered him,” Jensen confirms. “You held him under the bathwater and  _murdered_  him.”  
  
“Slit his wrists so he looked like a mentally disturbed kid, too.” Danneel shrugs, carelessly. “It worked, his parents never suspected a thing. I graduated top of my class and nobody was wiser for it.”  
  
Jared isn’t sure who wants to strangle her more, he or Jensen.  
  
“You didn’t succeed. You never got out of Singer. And Jared’s in the hospital.”  
  
“Yeah,  _brain dead_ ,” Danneel scoffs. “I might not have wanted to end up here, but I’m filthy rich for it. My family’s too stupid to keep their own books, and thanks to this hick town and its brainless washed up nobodies, I own some of the most expensive property in the state. I’ve got nothing to worry about. That potato isn’t waking up anytime soon--”  
  
He sees Jensen’s movement a fraction of a second before Jensen makes it, doesn’t have the time to tell him that it’s a bad idea, probably the worst idea in the world, but then, he’s got the idea that Jensen probably already knows.  
  
They lunge for the door, wings on their feet. If they can just get to the car, call the police, then--  
  
An explosion to his left, a punch to the gut, and Jensen goes down, Jared trapped inside him.  
  
Everything falls to darkness. Jared’s drowning, surely drowning, amidst a body once cold now colder, unsure if Jensen’s breathing or just dead upon bullet impact. Despite the futility of now, of fighting death, Jared’s pissed, so pissed at Jensen, that he doesn’t give in.  
  
In fact, he starts screaming, screaming Jensen’s name, rattling his ghostly chains for all he’s worth, ignoring the sound of Danneel’s fading heel clicks as she runs out, ignoring the fact that there are so many things he wants to say to Jensen, but all he can think right now is what an idiot Jensen is, what a brave, stupid stupid wonderful idiot Jensen is.  
  
 _Open your eyes, Jensen, don’t you dare leave me to die alone on the floor of this tackily decorated house or I swear to god…_  
  
He trails off, frantic, choked for fear. If he made it this far only to bleed out in and drown in the darkness and cold of another body…if he made it this far without ever getting to hold Jensen’s hand.  
  
There’s ringing, tone high in pitch, a tuning fork vibrating in their ears. He’s lying on his back, staring up at a white ceiling. Eyes open. Eyes closed. Light. Dark. So much dark. There are cracks in the upper corners of the ceiling. The house is old. It’s so old. Is no one else concerned about those corners?  
  
 _JENSEN!!!!!_  
  
Alertness slams into both of them, and with it comes a burning pain like Jensen’s never felt before, Jared can tell, sprouting from the center of him, a blossom of agony in the center of his belly. Jared feels it too, but he’s too relieved, too worried, to even pay it heed. Jensen’s significantly cooler inside. Jared’s tired of screaming. So very tired.  
  
“Jared!” Jensen cries out, looking wildly around for a moment before recalling that Jared’s inside him. He puts a hand to his pulse, as if he isn’t sure whether to believe his own life. “Jared, are you alright? Where is she?”  
  
 _She ran. We need to move. Now. Get to the phone, call an ambulance._  Jared commands, forcing himself to sound lively, playing drill sergeant to Jensen’s wounded soldier.  
  
“There’s no time.” Jensen gets up, and the presence of the bullet inside hits them with a sinking feeling, a grenade only just now gone off. Jensen reaches downwards, to the burning in their gut. It’s red. And wet. And warm.  
  
“She shot me.”  
  
 _Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. Now let’s go._  Jared’s going to throw up. Jared’s going to cry. Jared’s going to spill out of this body in red before he even gets to his own.  
  
“It hurts.” Always quick on the uptake, as ever.  
  
 _Jensen, get your ass out the door or so help me God I will take over and get you there myself._  
  
“Right. Okay. Going.” They’re both aware of the pain as they finish standing. The floor tilts sideways just slightly and Jensen has to consciously think about putting one foot in front of the other for the first few steps out the open door, Jared helping where he can, but together they make it to the truck. And all the way through it, Jared can feel something, whatever multicolored substance it is that makes up  _Jensen_ , freezing, growing smaller, colder. He feels his throat close up in denial of the fact, so he focuses on helping Jensen start the engine, on helping Jensen roll down the windows so the hot and absolutely useless air comes in. It will have to be enough, for now.  
  
“If we make it through this, I’m taking an extended vacation,” Jensen mumbles.  
  
 _You and me both_ , Jared agrees.  
  
  
\--  
  
Whenever Jensen had imagined dying--not something he did often, more out of morbid curiosity than actual wishful thinking--he’d always imagined it would be quick, painless. He figured that however it would happen, when it happened, it would take him by surprise, therefore making the emotional impact--as well as the physical--softened by the fact he had no idea death was actually coming. Death was never supposed to be drawn out and anticipated, never self aware or acknowledged.  
  
If someone had told Jensen that his death would be long and tortuous and via multiple causes; well, he probably would have laughed in their face.  
  
He’s not laughing now.  
  
 _Go faster. Take the surface roads, less traffic._  
  
“No backseat driving,” Jensen snaps. They’re halfway there, nearly, a tense car ride narrated by Jared pressing against Jensen. In theory, completely weird, but after a while Jensen realized Jared was trying to heal him, pour energy into the places where Jensen was hurting the most.  
  
Not that it helped much. With combined hypothermia and a gunshot wound working their magic, pretty much everything hurt by this point. However, in typical behavior, the odds did nothing to stop Jared from trying.  
  
 _Go faster or I’ll make you._  
  
The threat sounds feeble, even in Jared’s bitchiest tone, but the weakness in his voice actually does inspire Jensen to press on the gas harder, ignoring the painful clench in his abdomen.  
  
“That bullet’s sure going to leave a mark,” Jensen says grimly.  
  
 _Yeah, well, you had it coming you idiot. What were you thinking?! Why didn’t you run when I told you to?_  
  
“Are we seriously arguing about this now? Feels kind of pointless don’t you think?”  
  
 _Of course it is, everything’s pointless to you when you don’t agree with it! It’s bad enough that I’m dying, but on top of that you have to go and be stupid enough to get yourself--_  
  
Jensen feels the sudden wave of dizziness pass over him, like there’s a light bulb in his head flickering on and off, struggling to stay lit. He slumps forward a bit on the steering wheel, struggling to keep his eyes on the road and his foot steady on the gas. He suddenly understands what Jared was talking about whenever he mentioned the bathtub feeling. Like this present state of alert was too much, like there was a softer, homier place waiting for him.  
  
But Jensen doesn’t want to wake up in a bathtub. Not in this life or the next.  
  
He straightens, teeth chattering again and his bones ache from being so cold.  
  
 _Sorry_. Jared’s voice is pitched to a low whisper, as if he were on the verge of falling asleep.  _I didn’t mean to…I’m trying to stay calm. It’s just that you just make me so mad_.  
  
“Let’s change the subject, then,” Jensen grunts, tone matching Jared’s. He probes against the barriers of Jared’s consciousness, a thermometer to a sick child’s tongue. “Tell me how you’re holding up.”  
  
Jared chuckles softly, sending flecks of snow straight to Jensen’s bloodstream.  _Well I can honestly say that I’ve been better. But then, I’m not the one with the bullet in my body._  
  
“No. You’re just the one with the dying body,” Jensen replies curtly. He feels Jared blanch at the truth of the statement, but he refuses to apologize. “Don’t worry though. We’ll get you to the hospital. We’ll patch you up in no time.”  
  
 _You mean send me on to the afterlife...say goodbye._  
  
“Yeah. That.” There’s a weird clenching in Jensen’s stomach, but he can’t be sure whether it’s the bullet or not. He doesn’t want to think about this now. They’ve got ten miles to go until they reach the city. They’ve got time for stupid sentiments later. They have time.  
  
They have time, but they’re running out fast.  
  
 _Jensen..._  
  
“What?” Jensen snaps. He doesn’t mean to sound so defensive. He doesn’t mean to sound scared.  
  
 _I want to thank you. For putting up with me all these months._  
  
Jensen shivers violently, bites down so his teeth don’t chatter with it.  
  
 _I know I didn’t make it easy for you, and I know that you’re just itching to get rid of me--_  
  
“I’m not,” Jensen rasps, and his hands clench so tight his knuckles turn white at the spasms of pain and ice wracking through his body. “I’m not, Jared. You know I’m not.”  
  
As if Jared wasn’t aware that Jensen had done everything in his power not to end up here. It’s funny, because in the beginning, Jensen had wanted him gone. Had hemmed and hawed about it and complained to his heart’s content about wanting nothing more than Jared Padalecki’s spirit to move on. Now? He can’t think of anything worse ever happening to him.  
  
 _Okay_ , Jared concedes, like he’s not sure he believes Jensen but he’ll placate him just the same.  _Regardless, I still want to thank you. For everything. You’re important, Jensen. Dying doesn’t change that. And I want you to know that I--_  
  
Whatever Jared’s trying to say, Jensen won’t hear it. He can’t. He’s all of five seconds from pulling over and rolling out of the car and into the road to bleed out just so he doesn’t have to watch Jared leave. Just so he doesn’t have to let Jared leave.  
  
Because Jensen doesn’t want to do the righteous thing, just like all the other times before. He wants to be selfish and impulsive and stupidly reckless and he knows that if Jared keeps saying things that Jensen hasn’t even dared to hope he would ever hear, there’s no way Jensen will be able to stop himself.  
  
He wants to be the one with self preservation and narcissism in spades. He wants to be the bad guy, but he can’t. Because Jared made him that way, because Jared showed him that he  _could_  be that way.  
  
“Stop. Just. Don’t talk right now.” Jensen’s fingers are smearing his blood—their blood, he thinks--on the steering wheel as he turns onto an off ramp. “We’re almost there, save your energy. Stay alive. Stay here, with me.”  
  
A pause.  
  
 _Okay._  
  
He feels Jared retreat a little bit, and the panic Jensen was feeling retreats with it, folds itself up neatly, like a paper crane. Jared’s quiet for a few moments, and despite the shivers still racking Jensen’s body, the silence is disconcerting. Jensen hadn’t realized how accustomed to Jared’s chatter he had become. And now, Jared is here, but he isn’t talking. It’s the only way Jensen knows something’s really wrong. That this moment, this drive and this silence, is all they’ve got left.  
  
There’s a song playing on the radio that Jensen recognizes, and he makes to turn it off before he realizes that the radio isn’t on in the first place. It’s the piano notes. Jared’s piano notes. Unlike before, this time they’re flowing smoothly, with rhythm and cadence, as if the finest musician is coaxing them from a Grand Piano.  
  
“Jared?” Jensen intones. “What are you--?”  
  
The response comes not in a statement, but in a burst of memory through the back of Jensen’s mind; sharp Technicolor image with slightly faded edges that crackle and pop with age. The memory is warm, enough feeling behind it to dull the pain and the cold, to make Jensen forget, for just a moment, and sink into better times.  
  
But it’s not Jensen’s own memory that he’s seeing, because what he’s seeing is himself.  
  
Himself, months ago, glaring straight through Jared, bent over and groping underneath the bed for his reading glasses. Another image crops up, followed by another, then another, like a vintage film reel with Jensen as the subject. There’s him pulling out the Ouija board and asking blunt questions, there’s him running down the stairs and swearing and screaming his little sister’s name, there’s him finally seeing Jared for the first time, white as a sheet and looking petrified. There are other images too in between the montage of Jensen. There’s Chad tackling Genevieve down to the grass and kissing her cheek, Mackenzie sitting at the coffee table and coloring with her Crayons. There are blue skies while driving down the road to school, Jensen with his hands banging on the dashboard as he bellows out a song. Jensen watching the stars. Jensen lying back on his bed in the dark and staring straight up with wide eyes as Jared’s hand moves, centimeters over his face.  
  
Jensen has no idea when his face became wet, can’t even be bothered to wonder exactly whose tears are falling from his eyes. There’s an emotion welling in his chest, something warm in his heart that battles the frigid cold stinging in his veins; the sweet ache of gratitude and sadness and happiness all tied up in one. The memories speed up and slow down in some places, lingering in details that Jensen could never have noticed, the crease in his brow when he concentrates, the tick in his jaw when he’s angry, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiles, the way sunlight touches his skin.  
  
It should be weird, viewing himself through a lens that only sees him at his best. He wonders at Jared’s ability to somehow filter through all the crap that Jensen had put him through and somehow come up with this, this collage of images that paints a person Jensen doesn’t even recognize. He wants to explain that it’s only because Jared existed that he got to see that brightness, that any of it came out to play at all. He thinks he should warn Jared that he’s not that, he’s not any of that person without Jared.  
  
He realizes that Jared most likely knows this, and doesn’t care either way.  
  
If he thinks too hard about what it means, he won’t make it. So he clings to every soft tone of piano echoing in his head and lets Jared show Jensen what Jensen can’t let him say.  
  
The piece ends. Jensen wipes his face on his sleeve.  
  
 _Thank you for reminding me of what it’s like to live_ , Jared whispers, stretching out over Jensen’s nerves; a caress.  
  
“Thank you for showing me how,” Jensen whispers back, feeling like he’s coming apart, both body and soul, seams unraveled by pain and the unfairness of everything that’s about to happen. “And thank you for not destroying my iPod when you had the chance.”  
  
Jared’s pained laugh hits him like another bullet.  
  
Mile markers pass them like seconds on a time bomb clock, the two of them pushing their lives closer in hopes that they can push their deaths back farther.  
  
\--  
  
Jensen hates hospitals.  
  
They’re just one of the many things on the list of current things Jensen hates in this exact moment, along next to gunshot wounds and cold anything.  
  
This one time, when they were kids, Josh broke his arm skateboarding in the cul de sac of their old house. Jensen was five, and seeing his older brother hollering and crying in pain had put Jensen into the highest state of hysteria. The paramedics had arrived not just because Josh broke his arm, but also because his kid brother was having a full scale anxiety attack. There were sterile white walls and murmuring voices as the doctor’s explained that Jensen had hyperventilated until he passed out. Five years old, pumped with tranquilizers. He remembers the smell of death wafting in from the rooms around him. It was an experience he’d never wanted to revisit again. Taking Mackenzie for her stitches had been traumatic enough.  
  
Bursting into the hospital while bleeding from his stomach and suffering from hypothermia, though. That’s a whole other level of trauma.  
  
Screeching into the pull in driveway of the hospital probably isn’t the best idea, but Jensen’s never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the shed, and this is kind of a life or death situation.  
  
 _So much for parking etiquette_ , Jared’s voice echoes, barely discernible from the roaring in Jensen’s ears, like he’s being sucked backwards through a tunnel.  
  
“Sir! Are you okay?”  
  
Nurses swarm to him like flies to honey. He bats their hands away, grabbing the nearest nurse by the lapels of her jacket, rubbing red on her collar. His vision is blurring, and he gropes absently for glasses that he knows he doesn’t have on him.  
  
“Fourth floor. I need to get to the fourth floor,” Jensen gasps, feeling the floor pitch up to meet him, reaching for the wall as support.  
  
“Prep the O.R., we’ve got a gunshot wound to the abdomen.” There are fingers prodding him, he’s being settled into something, shivering, but it’s warm. “Temperature dropping rapidly, heart rate likewise.”  
  
 _Jen-_  
  
The clarity of Jared’s presence and voice shorts out for a few seconds, vanishing.  
  
“NO!” Jensen screams, wrenching himself upwards from the gurney, reeling towards the elevator. He punches the button before the nurses can get to him, hand clamped firmly to his side, as if by touch alone he can keep Jared inside him. Elevator floors slip by, and Jensen talks. “Stay with me, you bastard. We’re almost there. You’re not doing this to me. We’re so close, we’re so.”  
  
Jared’s words are coming in fleeting images and emotions that feel like slaps and shards of ice. They feel like apologies but he takes them as precious memories just the same. Jensen bites his cheek so hard he tastes blood. Or maybe there was already blood in his mouth. It’s hard to taste when your tongue is numb.  
  
Ding, the elevator doors open to what looks like a relatively quiet floor.  
  
It feels like running a marathon, violently shivering, dripping blood onto the sterile tile.  _And miles to go before I sleep_ , Jensen thinks, wondering how the hell Robert Frost became prevalent to this life, his life.  
  
There are Gen and Chad, sitting outside the room. They’re running towards him, Gen’s hand touching his face. Jensen tries to tell her that Jared loves her, but he can’t shape his mouth around the syllables in the right fashion. He shoves them away and enters the room.  
  
A family. A man and a woman. They have graying hair, despite youth in their expressions. The woman is crying. A girl. Another man, even taller than Jensen remembers Jared being. They look at him, the bleeding shivering kid in the doorway, for a solid, silent beat, as Jensen eyes the hospital curtain behind them.  
  
Jensen lurches towards the curtain, the Padalecki’s stepping back like he’s got the plague. Piano is playing again in the back of Jensen’s mind, sad. The bathtub feeling is tugging him under, and when he pulls back the curtain, it doesn’t really matter anyways, because he got where he needed to be.  
  
There’s a weird understated excitement to seeing Jared’s body, pale and weak as he looks, hooked up to tubes and monitors. The slash marks on his wrists have healed. He’s sleeping, that’s all. He just needs to wake up.  
  
Jared’s trying to say something, too weak to form thoughts so Jensen presses himself as close as he can to Jared’s soul, thinking words in fragmented sentences that make no connective sense.  
  
But he’d like to think that Jared gets it anyway.  
  
 _I’m fine. Be safe._  
  
An anguished shout bounces off the walls of Jensen’s skull, protesting the inevitable.  
  
“M 'lage ou,” Jensen says. I release you.  
  
 _I’ll miss you_ , Jensen thinks. I love you.  
  
The cold bursts from him like breaking the surface of water. He feels his own blood, hot, red, dripping from him. There’s a shift, as his mind suddenly moves to crowd a now empty space.  
  
Jared’s standing on the other side of the bed, a faulty projection compared to the real thing. Jensen’s knees wobble and Jared rushes forward, reaching forward to him, but the second Jared does so his form catches and he jerks, ceasing motion.  
  
Jared’s hand is caught on Jared’s body, he struggles against it, pulling, but Jared’s sinking. Quicksand pulling him downwards and inwards towards his own body, body and spirit melding into one. It’s a fight that he’s not going to win, and he raises his head at the last second, their eyes locking. Dying, but dying together.  
  
He smiles.  
  
“Jensen--”  
  
He dissipates like smoke on water. Going. Going. Gone.  
  
The machines all around the hospital room go flatline. Megan Padalecki screams.  
  
Pandemonium ensues. There is motion and there is yelling and there’s a helluva lot of pain, and cold. So much cold. He falls, is falling, and as he falls he gives in to the yanking sensation in his gut, gives in to the sensation of drowning. Surrender of oxygen soothes like a lullaby, the echo of piano ringing in between his ears.  
  
Death wraps around Jensen like a warm blanket, black shuttering down his eyelids, blowing out the candles, turning off all the lights inside him.  
  
He’d never found out what color Jared’s eyes were. He’d never asked.


	14. Chapter 14

 

Dying? It’s a piece of cake.  
  
Coming back to life? That’s a whole other story.  
  
He’s aware, more or less, that time is passing, that there’s a struggle for consciousness that feels like holding back a charging bull. He wrestles with the darkness, grinding his heels into the muck and scrabbling for footholds in what feels like an endless cavern of sonorous bliss. He catches things; screaming, beeps, a clatter, someone shouting “Clear!” far above his head, a thunderous boom that makes the cavern shake, but it all fades together into a radio static after a while. He has no choice but to push farther, climb the walls. The higher he goes, the more it hurts, but he continues just the same, pushing blindly upward until the screams taper off and the din ends and all that remains is beeping.  
  
Beeping and drums.  
  
Someone’s playing a drum in the room, a loud deep drum that’s vibrating all the way through Jared’s feet to the tips of his fingers. There’s a drum playing and there’s a wind blowing through him as well, thick and slow. Blowing in and out of his chest.  
  
Christ he’s tired.  
  
The wind is annoying, and so is the drum. He wishes someone could tell whoever is playing it to shut the hell up. Jensen would tell whoever it is to shut the hell up. He should get Jensen. Where is Jensen?  
  
Jensen.  
  
Jared’s eyes fly open, and it feels like he’s lifting two tons of bricks with the simple task of lifting his eyelids. Each blink, another rep of that weight moving up and down. Once. Twice. It’s then that he realizes that the wind blowing in and out of him is air moving in his lungs, and the drum playing in his chest is his heartbeat.  
  
He has a heartbeat. He’s breathing in air.  
  
He’s alive.  
  
But Jensen is not.  
  
With a Herculean effort Jared cracks open his mouth in an attempt to shout, but there’s something shoved down his throat. He chokes, coughs, gags, body convulsing. He tries to sit up, but he can’t move. A sudden visual of the frozen Tin-Man in the Wizard of Oz, unable to move without oil for his joints. He tries to call out, but gags again.  
  
“Jared!” A head swings into Jared’s vision, melodic tone of voice and chestnut brown hair tickling his nose. “Jared, can you hear me? Just breathe, okay? I need a nurse! HEY LADY, GET ME A DOCTOR WILL YOU?”  
  
‘Megan’ Jared tries to say, but what comes out is a raspy “Mumg”.  
  
His heart is pounding, eyes darting around. The muscles in his neck are stiff, steel beams holding him in place and that’s so frustrating, because the last thing he needs right now is not being able to get up and find Jensen.  
  
If there is a Jensen to find.  
  
A soft scream from the door, hands grabbing his arm, touching his face. “Jared, baby? Are you awake? Can he talk? Has he said anything Megan?”  
  
“Mom, I literally just hollered for a nurse, he’s got the goddamn oxygen tube shoved down his throat, give him a second.” Megan leans back over Jared. “Do—do you recognize me Jared? Do you know who I am? Who she is? Blink twice if you do.”  
  
It hurts, everything hurts, but Jared blinks. He feels his Mother shaking next to him. He twitches his index finger in an effort to reach for her.  
  
“Son?” Jared’s Dad has moved forward, Jeff in tow, their faces blurring, but clear enough that Jared can tell them apart from the corner of his eye. Jeff’s taller, Jared realizes with a pang. Megan too. They’re a lot older than he remembers.  
  
“He’s alive. You’re alive,” Megan keeps whispering. Jared’s mom keeps crying. In the corner of the room, Jeff fists a hand in his hair.  
  
Heavy, he feels heavy. He’s so tired.  
  
“The doctor’s coming now, its okay. Rest, please. You’re okay baby, you’re alive. You’re okay.”  
  
He has to tell them to help Jensen. Someone has to help Jensen.  
  
“Hang in there, little brother.”  
  
“We’ll be here when you wake up, promise.”  
  
“We’ve missed you so much.”  
  
Voices swirl around him in mixing cadences and melodies, pulling him back to sleep.  
  
\--  
  
Dr. Beaver is a short and burly man, with a graying beard and a gruff voice. He shakes Mom and Dad’s hands and greets Megan and Jeff like they’re his own grandkids. Then he turns to Jared, smiling.  
  
“Well, Mr. Padalecki, it’s nice to finally meet you.”  
  
Jared smiles, and his lips crack. “Pleasure’s all mine, sir.”  
  
He makes to sit up straight, but his body jerks and quakes with exhaustion after only a few seconds of straining. He has no choice but to sink to the mattress, winded.  
  
“You’ve had quite the nap, young man.” Dr. Beaver grins.  
  
“So they tell me.” His voice sounds like gravel, filled with wheeze and rasp. They took the oxygen tube out while he was asleep, but his throat clicks every time he swallows. Breathing deeply pulls at muscles along his ribs that twitch hurtfully with irritation.  
  
“Five years is a long vacation. Mind telling me where you got off to?”  
  
Smiling is something Jared hasn’t been able to do a lot of without great pain, so it fits now to smile, because he wants it to hurt. The pain, sensation, welcome along the edges of his nerves. After so long of nothing, hurt is something he thinks he can cope with. Physical pain, give it to him in a heartbeat.  
  
Emotional pain, he’s still shaky on.  
  
“S’a long story Doc. Why don’t I give you the brief bullet points, and we’ll go from there?”  
  
Dr. Beaver nods, and Jared swallows dryly, takes a moment to breathe and sort though the words on the tip of his tongue. He wants to do nothing but demand to know that Jensen’s okay, demand to see him, screw everything else until Jensen’s health is the only thing Jared is sure of. But Jared’s aware, more than ever before, of the ugly scars on each of his wrists, the mottled pink skin where everyone thinks he tried to kill himself not five years ago. Any word of Jared’s is already on shaky territory as it is. So he starts with the simple stuff or, the simpler stuff in the grand scheme of things.  
  
“There’s a woman named Danneel Harris, resident of Louisiana, drives a large silver Suburban. Used to be my neighbor and babysitter. You need to report her to the police.”  
  
“And why’s that, Jared?”  
  
“Because she tried to kill me.”  
  
Jared’s Mom gasps and Jeff bolts out of his chair like he’s about to attack something. Dr. Beaver doesn’t so much as blink, but Jared can see the disbelieving tension around his eyes and shoulders; Jensen had been the master of doubt, after all, so he’s learned to recognize the signs.  
  
“That’s a pretty farfetched claim to make, young man. You do realize that you were found with slash marks on your own wrists? That doesn’t look like an attempted murder to me.”  
  
“I know you think I tried to kill myself, I get that.” Jared’s nose itches and he sighs, frustrated that it hurts to so much as try to lift an arm to scratch it. “You are not without your reasons. And I can’t possibly ask you to believe me because it happened five years ago and medically speaking, I probably shouldn’t remember anything, but I do and she did.”  
  
His mother is crying again. Dad kisses the top of her head, the gesture tugging at Jared’s heart strings as he pushes on.  
  
“I caught her doing drugs and she didn’t trust me not to tell. So she held me down in the bathtub until I drowned, and cut my wrists to make it look like I did it on purpose.” Jared closes his eyes for a second. It’s the part of the story he’s most shaky on, because he’s felt the memory of that in the back of his head since he woke up, but hasn’t wanted to go near it with a fifty foot pole. Everything else—his family, his identity, his friends, his life—had come easy in recollection. But he wasn’t ready to remember his death, not entirely.  
  
Dr. Beaver stares for a long moment like he’s about to dismiss him, but then shrugs, and makes a note on his clipboard.  
  
“The police will need to take a statement. Lucky for you, kid, they’re already here.”  
  
Jared blinks, “Already--?”  
  
“We had a trauma case involving a gunshot wound. Had to call it in.”  
  
Jared sucks in a gasp and chokes on it, struggling and hacking until Megan pushes a straw into his mouth so he can sip water. Jensen. They called in the case for Jensen. Jensen’s here. Jensen’s a case. He’s not just another dead body left to rot in the morgue. He stops coughing, and there’s a room full of people staring at him like he just grew a second head.  
  
“You okay, Jared?” Megan rubs a soothing circle into his shoulder.  
  
He nods robotically. He is okay, but he’s got to find out if Jensen is the same before he loses his mind.  
  
“I hope they’re doing alright, whoever it is,” Jared says lightly, mind working miles ahead of the curve, careful to bite back Jensen’s name. Jared may barely have a lick of energy in him but he feels like rocketing out of this bed and running about the hospital until he finds the room with that name.  
  
“Kid just walked right into the hospital,” Jeff chips in, “bleeding all over the place. Wandered into this room and keeled over right on the floor while you were out. And then you woke up like, right after. It was really strange.”  
  
“No kidding,” Jared responds, the moderate concern sounding forced for how much he’s shaking. He can’t remember the keeling over part. In fact, his last memory before he’d been sucked into his own body was Jensen standing upright and only Jensen, pale and bleeding and trembling, staring at him. Truth be told, Jared’s almost grateful he can’t remember the rest.  
  
“Did they make it?” He asks, watching his family and Dr. Beaver’s faces for some sort of hint. His throat hurts.  
  
“He wasn’t my patient, truth be told. I’ll have to ask around. But for now, why don’t we get back to the topic at hand, Jared,” Dr. Beaver says patiently, motioning at his clipboard.  
  
“I’d really like to be sure they’re okay,” Jared insists, “I don’t really think it’s fair that I get to wake up just so some other sap can go to sleep, do you?”  
  
He knows that’s not how this all works, one life for another. But it sure as hell feels like it.  
  
Doctor Beaver blinks at Jared for a long moment, before looking at his clipboard, making another brief note. “Mr. Padalecki, I’ve seen coma patients wake up after days, weeks, and months of sleeping. But I’ve got to say, they rarely come out so chatty. And certainly never this coherent.”  
  
“Guess I’m a fast learner.” Now his head hurts, too.  
  
“Jared,” Dr. Beaver says gently, “five years is a long time to be in a coma. At this point, your muscles are atrophied so much that you cannot physically move. And because your initial entry into a coma was caused by hypoxia—lack of oxygen—the fact that we are having such a consistent conversation is, quite frankly, a damn miracle.”  
  
He glances at Jared as if Jared’s supposed to have the explanation for all of this, and then continues.  
  
“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to run some scans on your brain, your vitals, to see exactly just how much damage has repaired itself since the last time we checked. I’d also like to commence physical therapy, and I’m mandating that you see a psychiatrist. This kind of adjustment isn’t a light one. You’ve got a long road to recovery ahead of you, but we’ll do our best to make sure it’s one that sticks.”  
  
“How long until I can walk, Doc?” (How long until he can leave the room himself and go visit Jensen?)  
  
Dr. Beaver hesitates. “I don’t want to make you any promises. Every case is different. Like I said, your PT specialist will assess the situation and how to move forward from here.”  
  
Jared feels restless, wants to shift his body, jitter his limbs, and change his position. But his body is so heavy, and after five years of doing nothing, he doesn’t have the strength to carry himself. Jensen, wherever he is, however he is, has to wait.  
  
“For now, though,” Dr. Beaver licks his thumb and leafs through his clipboard, “smile. Visit with family. Visit with friends. You made it out of the rabbit hole, Jared. You’re going to live.”  
  
Funny, how something that would have meant everything to Jared six months ago now just feels like settling for the next best thing.  
  
\--  
  
Giving his statement to the police just about takes all energy he has left straight out of Jared. The police grill him for half an hour or so, and by the time he’s done, Mom is crying again and he’s got no higher desires than to take a nap and try not to worry himself sick about Jensen. He’s just about to pass out when the door bursts open with a crash and someone shouts, “OY! Clear the way! Best friends coming through!”  
  
He’s barely able to open his mouth to speak when a body hits him like a brick wall, dark brown mess of hair and skinny arms wrapping around him with the strength of a Boa Constrictor. And it hurts to try to hug back, but it’s the good kind of hurt. The best kind of hurt.  
  
Freesia. He’d forgotten Gen always smelled like freesia.  
  
“You idiot. You stupid, stupid idiot, how dare you scare me like that,” she mumbles into his neck, kissing his cheek firmly before standing up, and she looks a hot mess, tears and smiles and eyeliner all over her face. She looks beautiful, even though Jared’s seen her a million times before. “And how dare you be gone for so long.”  
  
He tries to open his mouth and apologize but there’s another wall that full on hits him, a wall made of spiky blonde hair and infectious laughter. He’s not entirely sure, because his whole body hurts, but he thinks Chad even has the gall to punch him in the shoulder.  
  
“Jay, my wing man. Nice of you to wake up.” Chad’s blinking rapidly, brushing at his eyes with the back of his hand.  
  
They sit down on either side of Jared, just sitting for a minute, smiling stupidly, and Jared rolls his eyes and says, “I wasn’t done yet. C’mere.” And the two of them glomp on Jared for another, longer hug.  
  
“We brought snacks.” Gen grins, dumping the contents of her purse on Jared’s lap. “Your family’s gonna go home and shower, rest, so we told them we’d take over babysitting duty.”  
  
“We’re not to leave your side,” Chad adds.  
  
“Not now, or ever.” Gen nods solemnly.  
  
“Don’t tell me you’ve got nothing better to do?” Jared quips. “What happened to the Ladies Man of Singer? Got booted from your throne?”  
  
“You wish,” Chad scoffs. “I am the  _only_  ladies man, Padalecki. Born to roam free.”  
  
He doesn’t miss the secretive glance Chad and Gen share over his lap. He makes a note to bring that up later.  
  
“Anywho,” Gen kicks up her ratty converse onto the bed and leans back in her chair like this is her room, “how are you feeling? We would have visited sooner, but the Doctor said family members only until they were sure you were stable, the jackass.”  
  
“We considered using firecrackers as a diversion to sneak in, but Gen wouldn’t let me.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Jared lies, pushing away the continuous tension in his gut, letting the warmth fill in. He may have seen Gen and Chad just a few weeks ago, but he didn’t realize how much he’d missed them until now. “Tired. But fine.”  
  
He’ll ask about Jensen later, when he can steer the conversation in that general direction without it seeming like he knows more than he should. He will.  
  
But for now, there’s an unopened package of gummy bears just sitting on Jared’s lap to attend to.  
  
\--  
  
As it turns out, Gen and Chad weren’t joking about not leaving Jared’s side. Save for bathroom breaks and obligatory updates to Jared’s family to reassure them he’s fine, they remain faithfully camped out on either side of Jared’s bed from morning till night, using up all visitors hours possible. Gen on his right, Chad on his left, swapping junk food and managing to catch Jared up on the last five years, plus or minus a few details. Despite the constant need for rest, Jared manages to fall asleep only twice on them, an impressive feat by any means. He wakes up the second time around dusk, slowly tuning in to Gen and Chad as they talk in low murmurs above Jared’s head. He drifts in and out, half asleep, for a while, until he hears the word ‘Jensen’. Then his mind snaps to, and zeroes in completely.  
  
“—says he’s through the worst bits, but he’s not out of the woods yet.”  
  
“This is awful. I feel awful.”  
  
“Gen, he said he had stuff he had to take care of. How were we supposed to know Jensen would go and get himself shot?”  
  
“We weren’t, I get that. I know.”  
  
“He wanted us to meet him in Jensen’s room.”  
  
“Yeah well he failed to mention the whole bleeding to death part.”  
  
“Don’t forget the hypothermia.”  
  
“Fuck.”  
  
“Not to mention the whole ‘swear on my mother’s spit’ thing which was—“  
  
“Jared said it when we were kids. I know.”  
  
“….What is going on Chad?”  
  
“Have you heard anything from Donna?”  
  
“Not since we ran into her this morning, so I’m guessing he’s the same.”  
  
A pause. Gen sniffles like she’s crying again.  
  
“Chad, what if he doesn’t—“  
  
“He will,” Chad says, low. “He has to. I’ll kill him myself if he doesn’t.”  
  
“Yeah but he—“  
  
Jared—unable to be still and silent a moment longer—makes a soft noise in his throat, and Chad and Gen fall silent. He gives himself a long moment, and then opens his eyes, acting for the entire world like he’s not about to leap out of his own skin. Gen hurriedly wipes her face on her sleeve.  
  
“Good morning, gorgeous.” Chad laughs. “Slept long enough?”  
  
“Did you? You look tired,” Jared puts forth, nodding at Gen.  
  
“Which is another way of saying I look like shit, thanks.” Gen rolls her eyes.  
  
“Well, then you  _both_  look like shit. What’s bothering you?”  
  
“Turns out you’re not the only one here in the hospital, Jay Man. We’ve got a friend who got out of the ER recently.”  
  
“Ah. A friend.” Jared’s heart is pounding.  
  
“His name is Jensen,” Gen snags the remote from the bedside table and begins flicking through the channels. “You’d like him.”  
  
“Is he alright?”  
  
“Someone, we don’t know who, shot him. They put him in surgery, but he reacted badly to the anesthesia and he had an allergic reaction. It was touch and go for a while, but,” Gen looks down at the remote, turning it over in her hands, then nods, as if reassuring herself, “he’s gonna be fine.”  
  
“Have you seen him?”  
  
“Family only, until he’s more stable. That’s why we look like shit.” Gen laughs. “We’ve been sleeping in the hospital lobby for about three days now, waiting.”  
  
Waiting. As if five years of waiting for one friend to be okay wasn’t enough.  
  
“Sorry for taking so long to come back.” Jared wishes he could hug her, but he settles for nudging her with his shoulder. “And thank you for waiting for me.”  
  
“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Jay,” Chad says on Jared’s left. “Besides. We had to wait. You haven’t seen the finale of LOST yet. And I wouldn’t miss you witnessing  _that_  for the world.”  
  
His friends take turns spooning hospital pudding into Jared’s mouth and bickering over whether to watch  _Jeopardy_  or  _As the World Turns_. The visitor hours slip by and by the time Gen and Chad head out to get their own rest, it’s like the pit of anxiety burrowing in him is almost gone.  
  
Almost.  
  
\--  
  
Thanks to good behavior and stunning results of MRI scans, Dr. Beaver arranges for a nurse to come around and help Jared into a wheelchair to go on ‘walks’ around the hospital. If Jared could jitter, he would jitter, but as it is his limbs are pretty much useless. He can’t even sit up on his own, for Christ’s sake, but he’s ready to be out of the room and able to move about the hospital. Because the first place he plans on asking to go, before anywhere else, is Jensen’s room. Just a little bit longer, he just has to wait a little bit longer. Just has to keep his family ignorant for a few more hours to the fact that he is absolutely on the verge of coming apart.  
  
Considering that he’s been out for five years, though, Jared’s apparently very well adjusted. He spends the time not sleeping—you’d think his body had had enough of that stuff—doing tiny motor exercises with his hands and arms, moving his neck about, all the while aware of his family watching him.  
  
His parents keep side eyeing him nervously, like he’s about to go right back to being comatose any second now. Jeff is a little bit calmer, but just as watchful. Megan is a constant at his side, reaching down every once in a while to pat his hair or squeeze his shoulder.  
  
Spending time with family you haven’t seen in a while is weird. But five years is a whole other story, and Jared spends whatever time he’s not in physical therapy or sleeping, with them. It’s awkward, at first; because Jared’s not the same person he was five years ago, a fact that everyone has been tiptoeing around since the moment he woke. But he’s always been a people pleaser and his family seems plenty ecstatic to simply watch him sit and struggle to hold a spoon in his weak hands.  
  
It’s humiliating, at best, so Jared distracts in the best way he knows how. By talking.  
  
“You got beautiful,” Jared remarks to Megan, smiling. He can do that now, without feeling his face ache.  
  
“I’m alright.” Megan blushes.  
  
“Any boys I should be warding off with my shotgun?” Jared raises an eyebrow.  
  
Jeff laughs loudly. “Way ahead of you, little bro.” He brushes his knuckles against Jared’s in a fist bump. Megan bats at his shoulder, ducking her head down.  
  
He’s tried to glean what information he could about Jensen from Gen and Chad whenever they pop by. But all he has learned by way of casual conversation is that Jensen’s in a room just down the hall, and his condition remains tentative at best. Not bad, but not amazing either. It’s hard to demand status reports without sounding suspicious, so Jared rather gauges how Gen and Chad are looking with how well Jensen is. Today, sitting with his Mom and Dad, they’re smiling and laughing, it must be a good day.  
  
Another nurse—a tall, dark skinned man who introduces himself as Sterling—pushes the wheelchair into the room with a smile. “Well kid, you ready for your field trip?”  
  
“Yes Siree!” Jared says, grinning.  
  
“Alright, first I’m going to check your vitals and see how you’re doing. If we’re lucky, we can remove the IV instead of carting it around with us.” Sterling winks conspiratorially. “You’re one lucky guy.”  
  
“Can we push him around?” Chad asks excitedly, bouncing on his heels over to Jared. “We promise not to push him down the stairwell! And no running!”  
  
Sterling raises an eyebrow. “I’ll let Jared decide for himself, shall I?”  
  
He checks Jared’s pulse and monitors, consulting the charts, Jared’s entire family looking equal parts tense and relieved. Jared just focuses on being on his best behavior, as healthy as possible and ready to rev in every way.  
  
Sterling’s just gearing up to hoist Jared into a sitting position when his pager buzzes and lights up at his hip. He pauses, frowning slightly.  
  
“I apologize,” Sterling steps back from Jared, stripping off his gloves. “I’ll be back in a few to take you on your walk, or I’ll send in a replacement.”  
  
“Everything alright?” Jared asks, something nervous prickling at the back of his neck, but Sterling’s already walking briskly from the room, closing the door behind him.  
  
Megan turns back to Jared, seemingly unbothered. “Anyhow, you’re gonna get out soon enough. We’ll pass the time. I’ve got a bunch of movies on my computer, what should we watch first? It’d probably be a good idea to catch up on all the Marvel movies you missed. And then there’s the last Batman movie, oh man, you’re gonna  _lose it_.”  
  
Jared nods stiffly, but he’s hardly listening. A few other nurses dash by his door, one of them delivering terse orders that he can’t make out. There’s a commotion down the hallway, something’s happening--  
  
And that’s when he hears the screaming. Jared’s head snaps up so quickly his neck spasms, pain ricocheting down his spine, but it doesn’t matter.  
  
He knows that scream. He’d caused that scream himself, many months ago. Mackenzie Ackles may be small, but her voice is loud enough to carry down the hall, and Jared’s stomach drops to the floor.  
  
His whole body convulses as he tries to sit up. Chad crosses the room in a few seconds and forces a hand on his shoulder, face stony, “What is it dude?” and Gen jumps up and leans out into the hallway to follow the commotion.  
  
She rounds the corner and turns back, breathing hard. She only has eyes for Chad, but Jared feels the entire world tilt on its axis with the way her shoulders heave and tremble.  
  
“It’s Jensen,” she gasps. “Chad--”  
  
Chad and Gen are out the door before Jared can even keep up with the thundering of his heartbeat. Jensen was fine, Jensen had gotten out of surgery, he had it rough but was gonna be fine. Jared was going to visit him. And now—  
  
“Jared, honey, are you alright?” Mom’s eyeing his quickening heart monitor. “Are you in pain? Should we call someone—“  
  
He can hear, somewhere down the hallway, nurses talking, Gen and Chad shouting, a little sister crying; it’s the most horrible thing Jared’s ever heard.  
  
“I have to see him,” Jared grunts, and he forces himself, makes himself sit up in the bed. His arms feel like marble they’re so stiff, but he claws his way to an upright position. He has to go, he has to find Jensen, he has to make sure Jensen is breathing—  
  
“Jeff, go get the nurse,” Dad says quietly, rising from his chair. “Son, lie  _down_.”  
  
“But you don’t understand,” Jared gasps, ribcage burning with the effort of simply sitting upright,  
“I need to know he’s okay, I just need—“  
  
“Honey, who is ‘he’? What are you talking about?”  
  
But his family’s questions fall on deaf ears. Either his head is ringing or he really can hear a flat line sound as it continues, a solid haunting tone and Jared feels his entire world---his entire life—funnel downwards into an infinitesimal speck of nothing. He can’t go on without Jensen, he can’t—  
  
“He’s having a fit,” Jeff mutters to the nurse who’s just entered the room, everyone in the room staring at Jared like he’s gone mad. “He’s going to hurt himself.”  
  
He has to get to Jensen. He has to--  
  
“Can you sedate him? Anything?”  
  
“NO!” Jared reels back like he’s been doused with cold water, outright refusal coursing through him like wildfire. Fine then, if they won’t help him get to Jensen, he’ll have to get to Jensen himself. He ignores the sensation of skin tearing as he tugs the IVs and monitors from his wrist, because that pain is nothing compared to the frantic clench of his chest as he strains to hear what the doctors are saying down the hallway.  
  
He pushes off the bed, ready and determined to run as soon as he hits the floor, ignoring the fact that he has not walked in five years. His family is shouting and the nurse is rushing forward, but they don’t need to worry, he’s got this. He’s going to go see Jensen, he’s going to make sure everything’s okay.  
  
The immediate loss of balance as his useless, useless feet make contact with the tile pushes all the air from his lungs, and when he topples to the floor, it’s almost laughable how his body refuses to cooperate with his brain. Even living, he’s got no control.  
  
He lurches, at the last moment, for the doorway, and he hears more than feels the smack of the windowsill on the back of his head, sees more than feels the pain blossoming behind his eyelids. He lies, disoriented, as his family and the nurse shout above him, but it’s all muted and warbled as if they’re underwater. He curls in on himself, body gnarled, muscles stiff like shale, shattering and chipping painfully inside of him. None of that matters, though. For Jared is untouchable, lost in the feel of his own heart; healthy and strong, steadily pumping, steadily breaking.


	15. Chapter 15

The world does not come back in bits and pieces like it did the first time he awoke out of blackness. This time it slaps him awake, and it’s like startling straight out of a nightmare instead of a dreamless slumber.  
  
He can’t move his hands and feet, and he can feel the resistance and scratchy Velcro of the restraints well before he’s opened his eyes.  
  
Sedative. His mind supplies the word dully, an afterthought. And he recalls the nurses lifting him onto the bed, strapping his limbs down so he wouldn’t hurt himself, sedating him so he would stop hyperventilating.  
  
Clearly, it’s worn off now.  
  
The room is dark and quiet, but summer rain pounds on the windows from outside, heady and thick. Visiting hours are between nine and five, though he can make out Megan’s jacket on the chair by his bed; she must have forgotten it.  
  
Jared’s mouth tastes dry, tongue riddled with sandpaper. He could call someone, ask for some water, but confronting the outside world involves confronting the very real possibility that Jensen isn’t alive.  
  
The outside world finds its way in anyhow.  
  
Sterling’s scrubs make a soft swishing sound as he enters the room, the lights flicking on with him. “You feeling better?”  
  
“What happened?” Jared asks dumbly, as if he wasn’t aware.  
  
“You tried to get out of bed. Bruised your head pretty bad. We had to restrain you so you didn’t hurt yourself, or try to get away once you woke up.” Sterling sets a water bottle on the bedside table.  
  
“Any chance I can get these off?” Jared pleads.  
  
“If you promise not to pull any more Prison Break antics, you got yourself a deal,” Sterling says, and at Jared’s responding nod he reaches forward and undoes Jared’s ankles and wrists. Jared lies still for a solid minute as Sterling checks his temperature, his pulse. The IV drip disappeared sometime between this morning and now.  
  
He waits, and when it appears that Sterling has finished, forces himself to ask the question he’s been dreading the most.  
  
“There was a coding earlier,” Jared rasps, “at the end of the hall. I heard screaming. Did someone die?”  
  
Sterling nods solemnly. “Yes, the man in that room passed away just this morning.” He walks to the doorway and flicks the lights back off. “You play nice now. No more getting out of bed unless I’m there to help. Good night, Jared.”  
  
Jared nods in response, though how he moves is a mystery. It feels like every bone in his body just turned to ice. He may never move again.  
  
Sterling tells Jared to call if he needs anything, and closes the door, leaving Jared alone in the night. He waits until the footsteps fade, and the room is silent again, save for the rain.  
  
“Oh God,” Jared croaks, feeling the dark space of the room rush at him, take whole chunks out of his body. He breathes, but it’s choppy at best, and there’s no fighting back whatever’s pushing past his tongue, up to the roof of his mouth.  
  
Please. He shapes his lips around the words as if there’s someone there to hear them. Don’t let Jensen be gone. It can’t happen like this, Jensen can’t just  _leave_  like this. They were supposed to be—  
  
He doesn’t know, really. He hoped, sometimes. Dared to dream, on occasion. But the point is, they were supposed to  _be_. Something. Anything. Anything but apart.  
  
He’s more alarmed than irritated by the sudden watering of his eyes, the sensation of cotton clogging his throat. He doesn’t even know he’s crying until he’s sobbing, the sound ripping out of the deepest part of his chest, like pulling weeds straight out of the soil. He has not cried since waking but he cries now, exhausted sobs that are more like sighs than actual crying. He closes his eyes against it, but the tears spill, hot and fast, down his cheeks. He can’t even lift a hand to wipe them away, he’s so exhausted. How pathetic; how pathetic and useless and sad and alone.  
  
And the worst part of it, the part that Jared might never forgive himself for, is that he doesn’t regret it. Even as grief carves into his sides, twists him up inside and wrings him dry. He doesn’t regret meeting Jensen, insisting on knowing Jensen, despite Jensen’s best efforts. He doesn’t regret it, he won’t. Even with the knowledge that he’ll never be able to say and do all the things he’d held back. Even then.  
  
He sobs until his lungs ache and his face is swollen, face turned to the pillow and—for all intents and purposes—prays for exhaustion to take over, because it’s the only way he’s ever going to stop hurting.  
  
Best efforts aside, it’s still a long, long time before sleep manages to pull him under.  
  
\--  
  
There’s a lake in this dream. Except Jared’s not drowning in this one. He’s trying to pull someone out of it.  
  
His arm sockets burn with the strain, gripping cold pale hands attached to a face obscured by frothing, dark water. Sweat drips down his forehead and he squeezes the hands so desperately clinging to his, but the person sinks beneath the surface, and he’s left to watch their fingertips slip under the black water, as if the struggle for breath was never there to begin with. He could never save himself in these dreams, of course he couldn’t save someone else, either.  
  
When he wakes, it’s in a cold sweat, and the immediate knowledge that there is someone else in the room.  
  
It can’t have been more than a few hours since he fell asleep; the rain has settled from downpour to light drizzle, pinging off the window panes. Jared blinks at the ceiling once, twice, three times, his face dried with tears like cracked mud, grateful for the almost absolute darkness in the room. He waits for the longest moment for his breathing to slow, for his sweat to cool.  
  
The longer he can put it off, the better. He doesn’t want to look to his right, to the other side of the room. He doesn’t know how to feel. He doesn’t know what to say.  
  
From the corner of his eye, Jared can make out a man leaning against the doorway, body angled away from any light. When Jared turns to look at him, he feels his body sag with relief, and sadness.  
  
Because of course. Of course he’d come to haunt Jared right back. Jared would never have forgiven him if he hadn’t.  
  
“Boo,” says Jensen.  
  
Jared’s not sure if this is the best hallucination or his worst nightmare, but he finds that he’ll take it over the possibility of a reality where Jensen didn’t even wait for him, didn’t even stick around.  
  
Jensen’s ghost moves towards the bed and Jared watches, frozen, reeling. He wants to tell him to stop, turn back, get away from me, almost sick with dread. It feels so selfish, to be happy that he can have this, to be angry that he can’t have so much else. That any hopes of touching Jensen, holding Jensen, have been reduced to this facsimile of a Jensen that’s all the charm and wit and none of the actual substance. Jared doesn’t think he’s ever wanted and not wanted something so badly than this moment.  
  
Jensen’s here, but not here in the ways that Jared wants—needs—him most.  
  
And yet…  
  
He notices the second Jensen gets closer, that he can’t see the wall through Jensen. He can’t see anything through Jensen. The darkness keeps his skin grey but his shape isn’t transparent, and his bare feet are making  _noise_  on the floor. Jared almost swallows his tongue he inhales so sharply.  
  
The bed dips when Jensen sits on the edge, as if there is weight to him, and Jared can’t move but he’s suddenly straining every ounce of himself to reach out towards—  
  
“Hadn’t you slept enough?” Jensen asks, grin almost jarring it’s so bright.  
  
It’s just Jensen. In the flesh, both body and soul. Not a ghost, not a hallucination. Just Jensen, close enough that Jared can see the nut brown freckles he’d memorized, now cast in shadow, but still present on a pale, very much living, face.  
  
“You’re alive.” Jared’s shaking now, absolutely trembling. “How—they’d said you’d coded. Mackenzie was screaming. You died, the nurse said you, you—“  
  
“The guy in the bed next to me had a heart attack post-op. Same room, different patient. Mac saw all the nurses and thought it was me, but it wasn’t. I’m okay. A little worse for wear, but okay.” Jensen grins ruefully. “You should give me more credit, Padalecki. You oughta know by now, I don’t give up that easy.”  
  
Jared’s smiling, and then he’s hysterically laughing, and then he’s crying, falling into Jensen and wrapping whatever limbs he can maneuver (which is a total of none) around him, trying to yank him close. Jensen comes without hesitation, firm and real.  
  
“Easy there,” he warns, wincing slightly. “I may have left my hospital bed, but that doesn’t mean I was supposed to.”  
  
“You bastard.” Jared laughs, body aching. “You snarky stubborn stupid  _bastard_.”  
  
“That’s m’name, don’t wear it out,” Jensen whispers, settling his hand on the nape of Jared’s neck.  
  
Jared lies, however awkwardly angled, curled against Jensen’s body, listening to breath sifting in and out of Jensen’s lungs, his steady pulse, insistent on his own proof of vital signs. He grips Jensen as tight as he can and he hopes they cement together, just so he’ll never be able to let go. Not that he’d ever want to, Jared doesn’t think he will ever get tired of this. It’s impossible, with Jensen feeling so good against his skin.  
  
“I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead and all I was gonna have left to remember you was your crappy music and your—“  
  
“Not crappy,” Jensen grunts, glaring down at Jared. “But for what it’s worth, I missed you, too.”  
  
Jared opens his mouth to retort that is so  _not_  what he meant you presumptuous shit but Jensen lifts the hand from Jared’s neck to cup his cheek, tilting him back, effectively cutting Jared off with the way he’s looking at him. Jared raises his head what little amount he can, exposed and feeling the intensity of Jensen, all of Jensen.  
  
“Hazel.” Jensen pulls away after a moment of squinting, head thumping back on the pillow. “Of course. I thought maybe blue or gray but no. You had to have the goddamn rainbow in your eyes. Of course they’re hazel.”  
  
It’s such a flippant and casual comment that Jared blushes, red creeping into the apples of his cheeks, and Jensen smiles that  _smile_ , all straight white teeth and crinkle around the eyes, and Jared’s gone; put a fork in him, he is simply done.  
  
Because no feeling or day or moment is ever going to be more gratifying than this.  
  
Jensen reaches out and plucks Jared’s hand from the bed spread, lacing their fingers together. Jensen’s skin is warm and dry, his thumb gentle as it brushes against the back of Jared’s hand. Jared clings with everything he’s got, all but impervious to the cramping of his fingers. His grip is a little slack with the inability to really hold anything, but they fit.  
  
“Don’t go,” Jared whispers, tucking his head into Jensen’s shoulder, inhaling the scent of papery hospital gown and iodine.  
  
“’M not going anywhere. You’re the one with the habit of vanishing, remember?” Jensen quips.  
  
“You think I’m gonna vanish now that I finally got you in bed with me?” Jared shoots back, feeling relief and exhaustion swirl in his veins like a drug. “Not a chance in this goddamn world.”  
  
Jensen laughs, like the crack of a whip. Jared could get drunk on the sound.  
  
“Alright. I’m gonna take a cue from you and sleep for the next five years.” Jensen readjusts slightly and closes his eyes, voice a low growl. “Because I got shot, and frankly I am fucking beat.”  
  
Jared, by contrast, is suddenly wide awake. All he wants to do is talk, hear Jensen talk, swap stories and banter until the sun rises and they have to explain this whole fiasco to their parents and the doctors. He wants to ask Jensen how this is going to work, he wants to ask if Jensen even  _wants_  this, he wants to know, has to know:  
  
“Hey Jensen.”  
  
Jensen cracks an eye open. “What, Jared?”  
  
“Can I keep you?” Jared delivers it with a cheesy grin, but his heart feels swollen and woozy and his body doesn’t feel close enough to Jensen for how much he means every word.  
  
Jensen blinks for a moment, eyes glittering amidst the darkness. Jared thinks he feels the hand wrapped in his tighten.  
  
“Sleep now, logistics in the morning,” he responds, grumpy save for the telltale upwards curve of his mouth.  
  
Jared laughs wetly, muffling the tears against Jensen’s neck. Weak, sore and crying on a hospital bed at 3 am, it’s the most twisted happy ending he’s ever heard of. All of this is messy and emotional and Jared feels like his heart could explode straight from his chest with how hard it’s beating. His entire body hurts and he can’t seem to stop smiling. Definitely can’t let go of Jensen’s hand. He’s never felt so ridiculous.  
  
He’s never felt more alive.


	16. Chapter 16

It’s weird to be able to say that he died, came back to life, was in a coma, fell in love, died  _again_ , before coming once more back to life in that order.  
  
Life is funny sometimes; Jared’s learning that.  
  
The morning after Jensen comes to his room, they wake up surrounded by a coalition including the Padaleckis, and Ackles and Co., all of them demanding an explanation as to how these two ended up in bed together, especially having never met. The showdown would have been intimidating enough as it was, but with Jensen merely rolling over on the hospital bed and saying, “I’m going back to sleep, you explain it them”, it was downright terrifying. So Jared had opened his mouth, and explained—more or less—the bulleted version of his time as a dead-but-not-really-dead person. The audience of family and friends was overwhelming, and Jared was more than grateful when Jensen stopped pretending to be asleep, and pitched in with his side of the story. It was the sugar-coated, blessedly G-rated version, but it was the truth. And after six hundred questions and explanations in the face of doubt, and fact checking on both their stories, well, their families kind of started to believe them.  
  
It takes time for everyone to adjust. But then, so do most things.  
  
He is released from the hospital on a Tuesday morning in a wheelchair, and Jensen—who got out a whole two weeks before him—celebrates by taking Jared to a candy store in New Orleans, where he eats so many sour ropes and gummy bears he nearly gets sick all over Jensen’s truck. Still totally worth it. They drive all the way back to Singer, Jared in the passenger seat, Jensen behind the wheel like so many times before, only now, Jared can feel the wind ruffling through his hair and nipping at his hand as it hangs out the window, and it is solid and real and good and more than Jared ever expected to have.  
  
His mental recovery is nothing short of miraculous. After just three months from his hospital release Jared earns his GED, and scores high enough on the SAT that he gets into Texas Tech on scholarship, where he’ll be studying engineering come the fall semester next year.  
  
Physical recovery is a bit more difficult. Jared’s physical therapist pisses him off more than anyone else in the world, but Jensen drives him to and from each and every session, playing new music and cracking jokes until the defeated mood lifts, and Jared smiles. Walking is exhausting at first and running is near impossible without his legs locking up, rigid, useless. But still, the first time he stands from the wheelchair and walks without wavering, it’s into Jensen’s waiting arms.  
  
Gen and Chad try to act like Just Friends for the first three months of Jared’s recovery. They keep their distance miles wide when visiting the hospital, but once he’s released, it’s almost painful to watch them skirt around each other, trying not to touch or act too flirty. Jared decides to put them out of their misery, and during one particular hangout down at The Wrap Shack says, “Look. I’m sick and tired of you two acting like someone died around me. I don’t care if you two date; you have my blessing, so long as I’m best man at the wedding. So Chad, why don’t you just quit treating Gen as if she has the plague and kiss her?”  
  
Chad stares like he’s been clubbed over the head, but he whips Gen around and dips to kiss her just the same.  
  
Jared whoops a sigh of relief and Jensen laughs, their fingers tangling together under the table.  
  
The Padalecki’s move back into the Harris Estate, at Donna’s insistence. Still, with money so tight in light of all the hospital and treatment bills, they rent out the entire second floor of the house to the Ackles. The two families eat dinner together in the dining room every night. It turns out Megan wants to go to cooking school, because she’s actually somewhat of a genius in the kitchen, much to Jared’s joy. His Mom and Dad promise that Donna will never be out of a place to live, and in turn Donna helps them sort out their finances, free of charge. Jared lives on the first floor, not quite ready to attempt stairs yet, but Jensen sneaks down most nights to hang out in his room anyways. If either of their parents notice, they certainly don’t seem to mind.  
  
Danneel Harris is caught trying to sneak over the state border, charged with attempted murder on two counts. Her absence from the public is a comfort to Jared, but there are days where he feels like he is still very much drowning in that bathtub, fear constricting the air in his lungs, unable to breathe. He’s not sure that part of death will ever go away, no matter how many doctors claim the very fact of his rapid recovery is a miracle.  
  
Life is kind of a mess. Jared’s learning that, too.  
  
Since waking up in the hospital, his days have become a series of firsts, trials and errors and adaptations to being alive and among the living that he had forgotten. He has to relearn almost everything he’d once known, simply because connecting brain with motor function is something he hasn’t done in five years. His family is endlessly supportive, but he doesn’t want to be dependent on them forever, not when there is so much Jared wants to do. It’s frustrating as all hell, and oftentimes the simple task of buttering toast or unlocking a door leaves Jared with shaking hands that won’t coordinate correctly with what he wants them to do.  
  
He’s not finding himself too worried though, because he has Jensen. Jensen, who has this rare quality of making the most upsetting things seem absolutely menial. Jensen, with his quips and jibes that—were they from anyone else—would irritate Jared to no end. But they are always delivered with expressive eyes, a kind smile, and gentle hands, picking Jared up from the pieces that he has managed to shatter into in the midst of his helplessness.  
  
It’s a mess, that’s a given, but having someone alongside you makes the struggle kind of worth it.  
  
Jensen starts re-teaching Jared to swim. It’s absolutely paralyzing and for the first two weeks of treading through water three feet deep, Jared wears floaties and a snorkel mask. It takes days to get him to submerse his head, and a whole month before he even goes near the deep end. They take things slow, and not once does Jensen chastise him for panicking every time he sets foot into the water, not once.  
  
Jared graduates from floaties to buoyant kickboards, and by the time they hit spring he’s swimming laps back and forth, racing Jensen like he’s going for Gold. They celebrate the victory by driving to Lake Charles for the weekend. They canon ball off boulders and swim till they’re pruned, drying off on the dock, sunset warming their skin. Jensen leans back, freckled shoulder warm against Jared’s, and it occurs to Jared—though not for the first time—that Jensen’s mouth is very pink.  
  
They’re taking things slow, in light of Jared’s recovery. And despite what everyone else is probably thinking, their late nights in Jared’s room are more often spent talking, sitting, sleeping with Jared’s head tucked under Jensen’s chin, than anything else. But Jared decides right here and now that it’s been slow enough and if they’re waiting until he can run marathons, well, then it might never happen. Besides, Jensen’s beautiful in the sun, and Jared’s never been patient. So he leans over and draws Jensen’s face to his, just like that.  
  
The first kiss is too fast, too eager and in his excitement Jared accidentally bites Jensen’s lip too hard and Jensen swears and flails off the dock and back into lake, sputtering and choking on the freshwater. Jared’s half apologetic, half hysterical with laughter, until Jensen leaps up and shoves him off the dock too.  
  
He holds his breath in the dark water just like Jensen taught him to, eyes closed, and is not at all surprised when Jensen’s lips brush his, fingers fitting just so under his jaw, tilting him up as Jensen floats above him, exhaling into Jared, giving him all his breath sealed in a press of lips. They resurface, needing oxygen, but Jensen doesn’t let go of Jared, doesn’t stop kissing him. And the first kiss was not perfect but the second is damn close, bodies clinging, mouths fitting, tasting like lake water and sunshine.  
  
The fact that Jensen transfers to UT halfway through the year is a surprise to everyone but Jared, who had spotted the college brochures in Jensen’s backpack two days before he had announced his admission. Jensen majors in cognitive therapy, specifically looking at experimental therapy through aesthetics, mainly music. By the third week of school, Jensen’s got a job at the campus radio station, and Jared feels like his heart might burst with pride. He listens every Monday night at six o'clock, even calls in a few requests whenever he can, just to make sure it’s not always whiny emo music playing, and that the DJ has someone to talk to in between commercial breaks.  
  
They buy a shitty studio apartment with a bathtub that Jensen wordlessly tears out the day they move in, building a large walk-in shower in its place. It’s done without comment, but Jared gives his thanks anyhow, pressing the words into slow, tender kisses that they share underneath the shower spray.  
  
They have a routine that involves laundry, grocery shopping, paying the bills. They do double date nights with Gen and Chad, or Meggie and Felicia, who come out to see them every month or so. They have a TV. A bed that they share. They’re talking about getting a dog.  
  
Life is kind of fucking fantastic, really.  
  
The first time they have sex, it’s perfect. The first semester has wrapped and they both kick ass in their classes. When Jared’s half-joking celebratory present turns out to be a box of condoms, Jensen all but carries him to the bedroom in his enthusiasm.  
  
They’ve had enough practice of this: removing clothes, undressing one another, foreplay, the like, but it’s now done with a harried urgency that is both fun and frightening, knowing how much they want each other, knowing that it’s all coming down to this moment.  
  
Jared’s so excited he can’t seem to keep his mouth from running off, even after he’s been silenced by the sight of Jensen’s naked body—that he’s seen a hundred times, in a hundred different contexts, both dead and alive, but will probably never be able to get used to, not ever. He grins, smears kisses across Jensen’s stubbled jaw and jokes, “I think I’ve had enough of me being inside of you to last a lifetime, if you know what I mean.”  
  
His self indulgent laughter skitters out into a shudder moments later as Jensen pushes inside him, lips locked around Jared’s pulse point and it’s with tongue and teeth against Jared’s collarbone that Jensen whispers, “Just shut up for once, Padalecki, and let me fuck you, okay?”  
  
It’s less of a plea and more of a promise, but for the first time Jared finds himself robbed of words as Jensen moves his hips with a roll and snap. Jared didn’t think this could have felt more intimate than the act of literally possessing Jensen, but like most things, Jensen exists for the sole purpose of proving him wrong. The pair of them blend together, skin and sweat and sex bleeding like watercolors and Jared makes a mental note that yeah, this is a whole lot more enjoyable than the first time they melded.  
  
There’s something about the sweaty taste of Jensen’s forehead and the coiled muscle of Jensen’s stomach as it brushes against Jared’s cock that makes Jared’s heart practically stop.  
  
Christ if Jensen doesn’t kill him.  _Again_.  
  
It’s absolutely perfect, and then not so much.  
  
“I thought I was supposed to feel different,” Jared muses into Jensen’s shoulder, some considerable time later. “I mean. Sex, the whole I-trust-you-with-my-body-heart-and-soul was supposed to be this big revelation…it’s supposed to change everything. But I still feel the same. Exactly the same, like it wasn’t even a big deal. Sex is  _supposed_  to be a big deal….Did we do it wrong?”  
  
Jensen raises a pointed eyebrow at the mess of come on their stomachs and on the sheets. “Forgive me for assuming, but I really don’t think we did it wrong, Jared.”  
  
Jensen’s grinning something lecherous, and Jared bites at his shoulder in retaliation, not so much panicked as he is bummed out. “I mean I know it’s supposed to be crap the first time, I get that, but I just can’t help thinking that it was supposed to be more than that.”  
  
“More than two orgasms and a severely messy set of sheets?”  
  
“That’s not what I meant…” Jared trails off into thought, fretful, fingers idly tracing the tattoo just below Jensen’s collarbone. He didn’t mean to insult the process of what just happened, because it was rather awesome. But there’s a weird sense of ‘that’s it?’ to the whole thing that’s either actual cause for alarm, or severe indigestion. He feels stupid for even feeling it.  
  
He brushes his fingertips over the tattoo; it’s small, and something Jensen had gotten shortly after being released from the hospital. The tune from Jensen’s song, a simple measure of the piano notes Jared had written for him, inked in a winding structure on his skin, trickling towards his heart. They’re identical to the one’s Jared had inked on his own wrists, where the notes lay on top of his scars.  
  
Jared does this often, can barely help himself half the time, unconsciously tracing the shape of Jensen whenever they lie together, on the couch, or like now, in bed. It’s the most immediate sense of comfort, knowing he can touch Jensen, knowing just by touch that he is still alive, that Jensen is here with him. He wonders sometimes, if it bothers Jensen, but is always calmed by the simple fact that Jensen is more than guilty of doing the exact same thing back.  
  
“Maybe sex isn’t supposed to be big deal,” Jensen says after a moment of pause. “For us, I mean.”  
  
“You better have a good follow-up response for that,” Jared mumbles into Jensen’s shoulder.  
  
“It’s not a big deal because we already  _dealt_  with all that stuff, you know? Trusting each other body heart and soul. Saving each other’s lives. Dying for each other. That’s not exactly light hearted material to build a relationship on.” The way Jensen is speaking now, voice pitched low, eyes shining, hits Jared like a punch to the stomach. “We’ve already been to the ends of the earth for each other. And now that we got  _that_  out of the way, well, everything else is easy.”  
  
Jensen says it so simply, so earnestly, that there’s a moment where Jared considers that maybe he never woke up in the hospital. That maybe he just died and moved on. That maybe his whole stars theory was incorrect after all. That maybe, this is heaven.  
  
“That’s a pretty fucking good follow up,” Jared says softly.  
  
Jensen frowns, “Okay well, maybe not easy. But…not so terrifying as the whole dying thing.”  
  
They stare at each other for a long moment, Jared thumbing the edge of Jensen’s tattoo. Jensen holding Jared close, noses touching.  
  
“So, what, the huge emotional revelation has already transpired, and all we’re left with is the crazy dirty monkey sex?” Jared asks.  
  
Jensen throws his head back and laughs. “I’m saying that that’s  _exactly_  what we’ve got. I’d say fair trade, wouldn’t you? And you know what they say about practice making perfect…”  
  
“Are you implying I should prefer shabby sex over multiple brushes with death and spiritual possession?” Jared says, deadpan. “Not on your life.”  
  
“I’ll show you shabby.”  
  
They tussle as Jensen tackles Jared down, hands digging into his ribs and making Jared shout and squirm. They’re wrestling till they’re laughing, and then they’re laughing till they’re kissing, and then they’re kissing till they’re breathless; dumb teenagers making out on a box spring. Turns out Jensen was right, practice  _does_  make perfect.  
  
Jared smiles into Jensen’s lips, eyes closed, and decides that either way, he doesn’t really care whether he’s in heaven or not, nor if heaven even exists.  
  
This is where he’s meant to be.  
  
\--  
  
Sometimes Jared wakes up thinking he’s drowning. He thrashes and screams himself awake, teeth chattering, body freezing and shivering violently in the sheets.  
  
Jensen’s there to wrap an arm around him, pull him close and bring him back to earth, each and every time.  
  
Often they bicker so much it’s a miracle they can stand living together, let alone sleeping in the same bed. Jensen’s a living breathing furnace who hogs the blankets and kicks like a Tasmanian devil. Jared has nightmares, icebox feet, and according to Jensen, snores like a freight train.  
  
Life is not easy with Jared and Jensen. Life is not perfect or picturesque. In the best and worst ways, life is every bit of surprise Jared was not expecting and Jensen didn’t dare to hope for.  
  
They make it work.  
  
\--  
  
Two am has always been the best time of day. With Jared, it’s even better.  
  
“C’mere for a second.”  
  
Jensen stretches his limbs further out to the corners of the couch in response. “I’m not getting up for at least a week. You damn near wore me out.”  
  
Even in a room lit only by candles—courtesy of Mama Devine and Meggie—Jared’s grin is still bright as day, ducking his head down where he sits at the piano in his boxers and a t-shirt. “Unbelievable.”  
  
“And you only have yourself to blame.” But Jensen’s already shimmying back into his own boxers and hauling himself off the couch, ignoring the protests of his tired body and muscles. He’s not about to let Jared think he rendered him  _completely_  useless. The kid’s cocky enough about his effect on Jensen as it is.  
  
“Wanna show you something,” Jared says, and Jensen scoots over closer than is necessary on the bench, knocking their knees and ankles by the foot pedals. “I’m still working on the middle section, but I think you’ll like it.”  
  
His nimble fingers start slow, haltingly working over the keys. Piano lessons are hard to come by with Jared’s schedule in the engineering program, and he still struggles with simple dexterity for long periods of time, but that’s okay, because the piece weaves its way in notes that overlap in waves, melodious, not a single key out of place.  
  
Jared’s hand darts up every few moments to shift sheet music to the left as he continues, and Jensen can’t make a lick of sense of the handwritten music notes on the page, but he knows, by the warmth of Jared’s shoulder against his, by the half smile as he plays, by the way Jared keeps sneaking glances over his shoulder, that it’s for him.  
  
Jensen looks around the living room as Jared plays, takes in their disorganized CDs—Evanescence and all--on the rack, the photos of their combined family members, all beaming, sitting in the kitchen together. Postcards from Gen and Chad, who’re somewhere in Europe traveling. Protective trinkets from Mama Devine, a few dozen books from Meggie and Felicia. And if the comfortable clutter weren’t enough, the walls are covered in photographs and weird keepsakes, like Jared’s secretly determined to scrapbook every second of their time spent together, to find and make meaning within every moment, including the tickets from the B-movies they sometimes see on weekends, coasters from the bars they go to, the good fortunes from the cookies that come whenever they get Chinese takeout.  
  
Jared plays, piano music swelling up in the room around them. It sounds beautiful, and it feels like… It feels. There’s no telling about the ache in his ribs, the fullness of his heart, so Jensen leans over and presses his mouth to Jared’s shoulder, closing his eyes and allowing the warmth of candlelight and music to melt him down.  
  
Jensen used to hate everything. But maybe that’s because he wasn’t aware that this sort of feeling existed, being with Jared. He didn’t know how it would feel in his chest, on his skin.  
  
But now he does.  
  
The higher blossoming piece trickles off into something softer and sweeter, until Jared’s just barely stroking over the rightmost keys on the piano, when Jensen rises and walks around the piano. The charred Ouija board from their ‘first date’ (Jared’s words) remains in the center of the piano, surrounded by more sheet music and scribblings. Jensen was all for throwing the damn thing out, but Jared, ever the packrat, insisted that it had a use.  
  
And it did, evidently. Jared leaves post-its on the board, stuck right on the planchette, for Jensen. Jared asks, and Jensen answers by pushing the planchette wherever it needs to go. Small things, easy things. Such as: ‘Did you get more milk?’ Such as: ‘Did you remember to pick up more condoms?’ Such as: ‘Isn’t your Mom’s birthday this Saturday?’  
  
Jared raises a questioning eyebrow, but nevertheless continues the piece, hands moving by memory now as Jensen looks down at the blackened game board, at the piece of paper stuck smack dab on the planchette.  
  
‘Do you love me?’ Jared’s post-it asks.  
  
The final notes of the piece dissipate into silence, and Jensen pushes the planchette over the ‘YES’.  
  
Jared doesn’t say a word, but his smile feels like the perfect chorus; his arms as they embrace the perfect song; his lips when they kiss, the perfect playlist.  
  
And, suffice to say, Jensen finds that he no longer hates everything.

  
\--

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> dimpleforyourthoughts: [tumblr](http://dimpleforyourthoughts.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/dimpled_trash)  
> / [ko-fi account](http://ko-fi.com/A33648QC)  
> 


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